


Trajectory

by abvj



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-09 20:30:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 31,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11676528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abvj/pseuds/abvj
Summary: It is slow, the way they grow back together.Emily and Reid in the aftermath of season twelve as they attempt to reconcile certain truths they've been trying to outrun for years.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place post season twelve and is mostly canon-compliant sans the car accident in the last twenty seconds of 12x22. 
> 
> This story was born the second I saw 12x21 and these two idiots sat across from each other in the prison and Reid looked so hurt by Emily's earlier dismissal regarding Lindsey. My fannish tendencies took over and I knew starting out this story would be a longer one-shot, perhaps 10K words, and I had a particular format I was writing in at the start. However, the story transformed into something altogether different. The intended word count tripled. I have spent the last week playing with several different formats but ultimately decided to post it the way I originally intended it to be posted which probably lends itself more to livejournal than Ao3 because I am who I am, old habits and all that. 
> 
> However, to be kind to anyone who chooses to read this, I have separated it into two chapters because 31K words at once can be overwhelming. 
> 
> Thank you to Ash and Katie for the glance overs and listening to me talk about this story for months. I know you are probably as happy as I am that it is finished.

[b e f o r e]    
   
   
There is a list of things they don’t talk about that can be summarized with a single bullet point:  
   
They kiss once.  
   
It happens at JJ’s of all places, after an impromptu dinner they both are invited to at the last minute. JJ and Will retreat upstairs to put Henry to bed and Emily and Reid are left with the dishes – her washing and him drying. There is no mindless chatter, no shoptalk. Just the easiness and comfort of silence only two people who truly know one another can appreciate.  
   
Certain things about the moments compiling that night stand out with more clarity than others. Bits and pieces shining more vividly in the hazy technicolor of her memory. But what Emily remembers most, what she can never forget, is the way his fingers brush against hers as they exchange a plate and the resulting sting of warmth that shoots from the point of contact and settles all the way in the base of her spine. His eyes dart to hers, then flicker to her mouth. It feels natural, almost, the way his gaze lingers there for just a fraction of a moment before moving to settle on his feet.  
   
The touch may initially be mistaken as accidental. They are friends, sure, but Reid has never been one for physical contact. It makes him uneasy, sets him on edge, and this has always been especially true with Emily. Reid is always so careful with her for reasons Emily has never attempted to try and make sense of before this moment.  
   
The intimate knowledge she has of him is how she knows the touch was purposeful, deliberate.    
   
Emily tilts her head to regard him carefully, and a moment stretches between them where she stares at him too long. When she too allows her gaze to linger on his mouth. She scans his face for some indication as to why he has chosen to make himself vulnerable to her now, why this moment with their friends upstairs and a pile of dirty dishes and too much history between them. Too much risk. Her effort does not provide her with answers, which is nothing short of expected. Reid has always been the most expressive out of all of them, allowing his micro expressions to give him away in the moment when he isn’t able to practice indifference. It is what makes him genuine, what makes him _Reid_. But when he wants to, when he puts in the effort, he is able to hide most anything.  
   
It surprises the both of them that Emily is the one to lean in, to bridge the gap and brush her mouth against his at the corner.  It happens in an instant, on instinct, and without any thought. There is a flash of warmth and awe, of utter stillness.  
   
When he kisses her back, when he parts his lips and opens himself up to her just slightly, he is tentative, tender, _familiar_.  
   
It is startling – the sheer intimacy of the moment – and the plate between her fingers slips from her grasp and clumsily hits the sink. The resulting splash of soap and water stains their clothes, the harsh sound of china against metal shattering the moment. They break apart with a gasp and a sigh all at once. She feels the loss of him immediately, and it is that loss, the bereft feeling the loss leaves her with that startles her more than the kiss itself.  
   
After, Emily presses her mouth into a thin line, attempts to school her expression into something resembling calm. Her eyes catalog every movement of his that followed – the way he reaches to his face, allowing his fingers to rest against his lips for just a mere millisecond before rubbing at his mouth with the back of his hand, effectively wiping her away. His back straightens and shoulders move ever so slightly with the weight of his sigh. He scans her face for what she figures is some resemblance of meaning, of purpose, just as she had done to him moments before.  
   
It isn’t a mistake that he finds nothing.  
   
Reid’s gaze returns to the sight of the dirty converses covering his feet. _I’m sorry_ , he murmurs softly, or so she thinks. It is difficult to make out over the pounding in her head and she reaches for her wine glass out of a simple need to do something with her hands. She takes a long, slow sip, the merlot staining her teeth and covering the taste of him that lingers on her lips.     
   
_Me too._  
   
It is easy, the lie, and hastily offered. The glass clinks against the granite too loudly as she sets it to the side again and purposefully reaches for the discarded plate. After she rinses it, she hands it to him.  
   
Reid no longer allows their fingers to touch.

 

 

 

 

[o n e]  
   
   
Everything is different after, but it is also almost exactly the same.  
   
Scratch is still in the wind.  
   
Hotch and Morgan remain gone.  
   
People keep doing unthinkable things and the team keeps fighting to stop them.  
   
The brass censures her for her reckless leadership every which way they can, albeit in private. _This time._  
   
They talk about her moral ambiguity like Emily should be ashamed of the things she has done, but she isn't. She is who she is and she will never make any excuses for it. She may be pragmatic most days, but her ability to walk the line between right and wrong, to exist comfortably in the morally gray to save her family and to catch the bad guys is never anything she will apologize for. Cruz tells her next time she won't be so lucky, that this job is not meant for the faint of heart but it also isn't meant for those who lead with abandon. Emily is sure this is true, but she also knows nothing will ever come from it. The BAU is respected. The BAU is revered. It is also well known to leave those who dedicate themselves to the cause an utter mess. They have all served as an example at one time or another.    
   
The world keeps spinning and Emily does her best to keep herself and the team upright in the aftermath.  
   
Reid walks the line of indecision. Considers leaving The Bureau altogether as the higherups decide what to do with him. There is mandatory counseling with report after report detailing his innermost thoughts, his deepest secrets piling up on her desk that Emily refuses to read. She just waits for the eventual notification of clearance she knows will come. He distances himself from all of them afterward, throws himself into taking care of Diana out of what Emily suspects is guilt, some sort of play for redemption that isn't necessary but he feels it is. Garcia panics. JJ and Rossi worry quietly. Emily doesn't. She knows Reid. Recognizes bits of herself in him, especially now after everything she knows he did to survive.  
   
Emily also knows what they all know, but sometimes choose not to acknowledge: this is where they belong.  
   
They are all a little bit broken, all dysfunctional in their own ways, but together they form a nearly perfect, functional whole. Sometimes it just takes leaving and coming back to remember.  
 

 

 

 

 

[t w o]

 

A family in Salt Lake is annihilated except for the youngest child, a four-year-old boy, who is abducted from the scene. The team identifies the unsub just in time and the little boy is saved without a scratch on him, although Emily surmises the psychological scars will be everlasting. She has never fooled herself regarding this aspect of their job – even a win isn’t really a win. Some days she finds it wearing on her more than others.  
   
It is Reid’s first case back after, well, _everything_. His reinstatement was hard fought for, an uphill battle. It’s only been a week since it has been official, and he stays behind to help her pack up case files. To help clean up the literal mess the team has left in their wake after three days of camping out in the small-town police station’s conference room. Emily looks up and realizes it’s dark outside; realizes she can barely remember what day it is. Her stomach rumbles for the first time since they landed days before and she’s about to ask him if he wants to grab a bite to eat before they meet everyone at the airport when –  
   
“I loved you.”  
   
The files between her fingers nearly slip out of her hands. She looks up immediately and towards him, both stunned and confused. She finds him actively not looking at her. There is a silence between them that pops in her ears.  
   
“I thought I was going to die in there,” he starts, then stops, pausing for a long moment before trying again. “I thought I was going to die and it made me think about everything, about everyone, and when it came to you, when I thought about you, I realized I was going to die and you would never know –”    
   
Emily murmurs his name, tries to interrupt, to stop him from continuing, but he shakes his head decisively. Determined. His fingers busy themselves with rearranging the files in his hands before placing them in the box at his side carefully. Reid still doesn’t look at her and when he speaks again it is clinical, automatic, almost cold. Emily doesn’t quite know why _that_ is what bothers her the most about this entire situation. Tries not to think about how this is the first time they’ve truly been alone together without the others, without Diana, since the prison. Since she sat across from him and was so utterly ashamed when she said _you were right_. He barely looked at her then too.  
   
She realizes now what she hasn’t wanted to for months: the distance placed between them was intentional. This knowledge leaves a bitter taste in the back of her mouth that burns something fierce.  
   
“You don’t have to say anything,” he mumbles. “I don’t want you to say anything. I’ve been carrying it around for so long and I just didn’t want to anymore.” Reid clears his throat awkwardly. When he speaks again it is so soft she must strain to hear when he says, “I felt you deserved to know.”  
   
When he does look at her, finally, his face is one of practiced indifference. It is a version of what he saves for the work, and despite it, despite the cold feeling it leaves her with, it feels almost as if he is looking right into her. It unnerves her.  
   
The edges of her file in her hands crinkle under the pressure of her grip. She counts to three in her head before willing herself to relax.  
   
“Okay,” she breathes slowly.    
   
Reid smiles but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “ _Okay_.”  
   
   
 

 

It is only on the plane back home when she is running through every word and expression and silence of the conversation that she realizes he said loved.  
   
Past tense.  
   
Emily isn't quite sure what to make of that, isn’t quite sure what to make of anything, really. Wonders if Hotch had still been here, if she weren’t the boss and Reid her subordinate that needed time off to care for his ailing mother, if he still would have sought her out all those months ago. If he would have confided in her. Wonders if she had still been in London if he would have reached out for help after Mexico or merely kept her in the dark like he did Morgan. She would like to think yes. Would like to think their history still matters, still counts for something. But now she is not so sure.

Emily can feel her mind spinning out of control trying to make sense of it all when Lewis kicks her foot under the table between them, breaking her train of thought.  
   
“You okay?”  
   
Emily’s nod is careful. Her mouth twists into a practiced smile. Across the aisle from them, JJ snores quietly. Alvez and Walker are talking in hushed tones a few rows ahead. One of them laughs softly.    
   
She can’t see Reid, but she knows exactly where he is – at the table behind her, the one where he and Gideon used to play chess once upon a time. Emily can feel the warmth of his gaze on the back of her neck but doesn’t turn to look. He is isolating, closing himself off from the rest of them. It’s new, this habit of his, but almost expected after everything that has transpired in the past year. Emily knows she should shut it down, that it is their job, _her_ job to pull him out of his own head, but she doesn’t.  
   
It is cowardly, and selfish, and _stupid_ , but it all seems so unbelievably complicated right now, so she just simply doesn’t.  
 

 

 

 

 

   
[t h r e e]  
   
   
Morgan had been the one to say it first.    
   
It is sometime after Doyle. After Emily died and became reborn. She is right on the cusp of leaving again but hasn’t quite figured that out for herself yet. Morgan is watching her carefully, feet up on Reid’s desk like they belong there, hands fidgeting with some sort of trinket that usually sits proudly on display. They are the last ones left in the bullpen. Overhead the florescent lights crackle and somewhere in the distance a phone rings and rings. It has been a week, two cases on opposite sides of the continent, so many bodies that she has to count them on her fingers _and_ toes.  The exhaustion settles in the base of her neck, right between her shoulders, and when Morgan speaks it takes a second to register, for her to make sense of the words.  
   
“You know he is in love with you right?”  
   
Emily’s fingers still over the keyboard. The look she gives him is sharp, guarded. This reaction eggs Morgan on even more and when he laughs, he tilts his head back, makes a show of it, but the sound carries little humor.  
   
“Don’t act like you don’t know.”  
   
Emily does not ask _what_ or _who_.  
   
The silence she offers speaks for her.   
 

 

 

 

 

[f o u r]  
   
   
On Saturdays when there isn’t a killer to be caught, the girls meet at JJ’s for wine and dinner. Sometimes Lewis comes, but most of the time it is just Garcia, JJ, and Emily, the original three, camping out on JJ’s worn couch with a bottle of wine between them. They gossip, they drink, and they eat really good food that Will sometimes (most times) indulges them by cooking. It is a routine, tested and true after all of these years, and Emily always loves how easily they fall back into familiar patterns. How easily they find comfort with each other no matter how long it has been or what sort of catastrophe has occurred since the last time they managed to get together. There have been periods over the years where nights like these became less frequent, and non-existent while Emily was away in London. But after Morgan and Hotch leave and they almost lose Reid, the three of them put forth a new effort, place a higher importance on taking care of themselves and the family they’ve created amongst each other.  
   
They have rules for these nights, topics that are off limits. They don’t talk about the work and they don’t talk about the others. These nights are a play for normalcy, an effort to shut out the world and remember their individual existence does not start and end with the BAU.  
   
It is JJ who cemented these rules all those years ago, always more self-aware than the rest of them.  
   
It is also JJ who breaks them tonight when she asks Emily about Reid almost too nonchalantly as she settles onto the couch. Garcia is off searching for a fresh bottle of wine and whatever snacks she can find. The sound of laughter echoes from upstairs where Will is going through the boys’ nighttime routine. JJ smiles without even knowing it, her mouth twisting at the corners around the rim of her wine glass. It only lasts a moment, though, because she is very serious when she turns to Emily and asks why she and Reid are acting so weird with each other.  
   
Despite what outsiders may be led to believe because of her shiny hair and bright smile, JJ can be totally fucking scary when she wants to be. And she is looking at Emily so pointedly at the moment that Emily can’t help but sit up a bit straighter on instinct.  
   
Emily forces a small laugh that falls flat. “What are you talking about?”  
   
And truly Emily doesn’t have any idea. It has only been a week since Reid’s quiet, pseudo-declaration in Salt Lake, and they’ve continued on like nothing at all happened. Likely because it didn’t. After much thought and deliberation regarding the entire incident, Emily is nearly certain of this. Even if she wasn’t, she knows Reid and she is more than capable of reading between the lines. He had told her loved her and the past tense was deliberate. Emily knows this because she knows Reid does almost nothing without careful consideration. It wasn’t meant to be a romantic declaration and it wasn’t intended to make her feel a certain type of way. It was only meant to free him of the burden he’d been carrying around with him.  
   
It was entirely selfish, but Reid is seldom selfish, so she is having trouble faulting him for it.  
   
Still, JJ gives her an incredulous look and raises an eyebrow.  “You guys haven’t been right since he got out.”  
   
Emily sighs. This, too, she is nearly certain of. She shrugs in a way that is meant to communicate ambivalence, but likely does everything but. At least not to those who know her. Emily finishes what is left of her wine and wishes Garcia would hurry up with the other bottle. Thinks briefly about deflecting, but knows JJ would see right through it and Emily is honestly too tired to try.  It has been a long week and she thinks about all the paperwork waiting for her and knows she should probably be at the office and not here. That skipping out on her duties tonight likely equates to a day of paperwork later in the weekend. But then she remembers Hotch and his quiet disengagement from them. How tired he looked in the end. Emily knows that isn’t who she wants to be, title of boss or not.  
   
“I disappointed him,” she tells JJ slowly, honestly, and it hurts to say the words because she knows they are undoubtedly true. Still, JJ looks incredulous all over again. “I did. I didn’t believe him about his mom. He –”  
   
“He doesn’t blame you for all the crap Lindsey and Cat did, Emily. That’s the dumbest fucking thing I have ever heard. That’s all in your head and you need to cut it out.”  
   
Emily smirks despite the severity of the conversation. She simply can’t help it. It is a little-known fact that JJ swears like a sailor when she is drinking. Emily finds it both endearing and hilarious and has to press her mouth into a thin line to keep from chuckling as she explains, “I don’t think he blames me, but he definitely hasn’t forgotten that he came to me for help and I didn’t believe him. That I wasted time.”  
   
Throwing a hand up dismissively JJ shouts for Garcia to hurry up with the wine and finishes what is left in her glass in preparation.  
   
She is so serious again when she turns towards Emily and says, “Spence is always so damn touchy, you know. Especially when it comes to you.” Pausing for emphasis, JJ gives Emily a strange look that can be deciphered a million different ways. It makes Emily wonder what exactly JJ knows, what Reid may have told her, and she tries to read the other woman’s face for answers but nothing is there. If JJ does know anything, she gives nothing away. Instead, she gently kicks Emily’s leg with her bare foot in a way Emily supposes is meant to be encouraging, but falls slightly short. Gently, JJ advises, “Reach out to him. He is struggling with his mom. He needs you. He misses you. And I think you miss him too.”  
   
This is also true. Emily does miss him. She misses their friendship, their closeness, their connection. There is a moment, brief and insecure, where Emily considers telling JJ about Salt Lake just so she doesn’t have to carry it around anymore. Because the burden of it is making her so uncomfortable, causing her to question all sorts of things she thought she understood, and she honestly doesn’t know how he did it for so long. Emily thinks about telling JJ because that is the sort of thing any other rational human being would do. She opens her mouth to spill some of her secrets, shed some of their weight, but the words get stuck in the back of her throat.  
   
Garcia chooses that exact moment to stroll back in. Her hands are full of chips, an entire block of cheese, and not one, but two bottles of wine. One of which is already open. She is so blissfully unaware, and happy, not at all shy about the way she drinks right from the bottle.  
   
Emily laughs a little allows the moment to pass. 

 

   
   
   
Despite the months, almost a year now, that has passed since she has been back in the states, her apartment still has blank walls and unpacked boxes stacked in every corner. Emily nearly trips over them as she makes her way towards her bed and collapses onto it later that night. Slowly, the alcohol works its way out of her system, and with the newfound sobriety comes a blinding clarity. It leaves her cold. She turns the television on in an attempt to fill some of the emptiness around her with white noise, and finds herself flipping through the channels aimlessly until she stumbles upon a _Doctor Who_ marathon.  
   
Naturally, she thinks of Reid. She thinks about calling him. Even reaches for her phone, because that is who they used to be to each other. Thinks better of it mid-dial.  
   
Emily decides on a text, simple and easy: _DW marathon on BBC. Tennant version. You up?_    
   
It’s easy to get caught up in the familiar story and she does. Watches with interest as the story unfolds even though she’s seen it countless times before. Before she realizes it, the sun is threatening to rise, the early morning traffic of DC already starting on the streets outside her window. On the television The Doctor wearily says, _I’m burning up the sun just to say goodbye_ as he and Rose stand on a deserted beach, together for the final time.  
   
Beside her the phone sits motionless, the blank screen staring back at her.  
   
She cries and isn’t ready to think about why.  
   
 

 

 

 

   
[f i v e]  
   
   
When Emily is in the mood to reconcile certain truths about herself, she can admit that things have always just been fundamentally different for she and Reid.  
   
She cannot pinpoint the exact moment it happened, even with the clarity of hindsight. Emily realizes this is likely because the progression was nearly negligible, the changes painstakingly slow to take.  
   
There are hints along the way, moments that can be identified as precipitants:  
   
The plane ride after Benjamin Cyrus, for one. The careful way Reid held her hand, and the undeniable comfort she felt in the way his thumb drew a line across hers over and over. The way their friendship was solidified and deepened as a result of those three days in the compound, forever changed.  
   
There establishment of routines before Doyle.  
   
The shift in routines in the aftermath of Doyle.   
   
It makes Emily incredibly angry to regard Doyle with any amount of significance, but she cannot help but think of him not as the catalyst for change but as the line drawn between the before and after. _Ante et post._  
   
Reid saw her actions a betrayal, which was fair and mostly accurate. She doesn’t begrudge him this. Although Emily cannot help but think that for one to feel betrayal as intensely as Reid had, one must also feel an amount of intimacy that goes deeper than colleagues, than friends, than people who simply spent their free time bonding over the work and mutual geeky habits nobody else truly understood.  Emily hates Doyle for a lot of things, but especially for this, for changing who they were – separately, together, to each other. For bringing these truths to the surface, making them nearly impossible to ignore any longer.  
   
Though ignore she did – quite well in fact. The ability to compartmentalize was seemingly instilled within her since birth and it is how she has become successful, how she managed to get so deep undercover and not lose herself entirely. It is also how she closes herself off from the world, from those who matter the most. Compartmentalizing makes it easier to file away glances and touches that were seemingly innocent but left an inexplicable impact. Makes it easier to bury the undeniable but subtle shift between them into the deep recesses of her mind and not have to admit things were changing and she had no control over it.    
   
Another hint: Emily dreamed about Reid while she was in London.  
   
The dreams initially consisted of fragments of memories, colorful reminisces of the two of them conducting what had been their normal routines of Saturday morning coffee, movie outings, and television marathons when the time permitted. Then they shifted to a future when he comes to visit her in London, _finally_. She dreams of the two of them doing the clichéd touristy things like seeing Shakespeare’s Globe and Buckingham Palace. But also doing typical Reid and Emily things like visiting the East End and discussing their theories regarding the identity of Britain’s most famous unidentified serial killer or researching the best coffee around because as hard as she may try, tea will never be her thing and Reid considers himself something of an expert on the subject.  
   
Emily rationalizes, quite well in fact, that these are simply a metaphor for missing DC, for missing her family. These dreams were her subconscious’ way of saying _look at what you’ve destroyed_. A reminder that she has a tendency to leave a wreckage wherever she goes.  
   
It’s easier for her this way.  
   
Easier for her to ignore the truth. 

Easier to believe the weight all this information carries when compiled doesn’t signify anything even close to resembling love, but instead something simpler like lust or vague representations of a fantasy that would never, could never be a reality.  
   
It’s easier for her this way – until it isn’t, of course. 

 

 

   
(She dreams of that moment in JJ’s kitchen too and even in the dream Emily can taste him, can feel him pressed against her in all the right places.  
   
But Emily doesn’t like to acknowledge this. Doesn’t even consider it to be a facet of her reality. She doesn’t even begin to put effort into rationalizing these dreams away because in doing so she would have to admit they go far beyond a memory being stuck on repeat or her subconscious longing for what once was. 

There is a moment in the dream when reality breaks into something altogether different, when she doesn’t allow Reid to pull away, doesn’t allow him to murmur _I’m sorry_. When she doesn’t lie as though it meant nothing.  
   
Instead, in these dreams, Emily pulls him closer to her, opens her mouth to his and keeps kissing him until she wakes with a jolt and feels the same coil of arousal in the pit of her stomach and a new, defiant heat between her legs.)  
   
   
   
   
 

   
(A final hint: While she does not think of Reid the first time she and Mark fuck – Emily isn’t that cruel, even on her worst day – as she bathes afterward with Mark still asleep between her sheets, she wonders idly if Reid would like it in the shower. 

Thinks of him as her fingers lick away the sex between her thighs.  
   
Of course, Emily never acknowledges this either.) 

 

 

 

 

   
[s i x]  
   
   
Someone is abducting children in San Diego. Young girls in particular. It takes two bodies washing up on the beach, mutilated beyond recognition, before the BAU is invited in.  
   
It is a difficult case. The ones with children always are. It is the cruel nature of the work. Children mean the risks are higher, that the odds are hardly ever in their favor. The team has been on the west coast eight days without a break or any new leads. They are stuck at an impasse, that awkward time where they need a fresh kill to continue working the profile, to garner any type of advantage. It makes Emily a bit sick – the waiting game, knowing for the team to catch a break they need another body and that means another child has to lose their life. Another family has to become broken.  
   
They never prepare you for this part of the job. They never teach you the right things to say as a grieving mother falls apart at your feet over the loss of their child and you can’t console them the way a decent human being should because you are too busy looking for indicators of guilt. They don’t teach you how to handle the dangerous unknown while you work a case, knowing that the next body is on you, on your team, a product of indecision or inability to follow the signs.  
   
Emily learned most of what she knows from Hotch and the rest she finds herself making up as she goes along.  
   
Sleep never comes easily during cases, so she stays long after she sends the rest of the team back to the hotel. Makes herself at home at an empty desk in the bullpen and goes over the lives of the victims, their families, their friends, their routines in a search for any connection. There is none, and she knows this already, but their faces are so innocent, their smiles so carefree as they stare back at her from their final resting place on the murder board, that she goes through files and statements until she is able to recall their contents from memory.     
   
It’s likely after midnight when she looks up and sees Reid through the glass walls of the conference room.  He is bent over a map, likely using guesswork – educated, but guesswork all the same – in an effort to sketch out a geological profile. The tension in his shoulders and the angry way he throws a pencil on the table tells her he is no closer to answers than she is.  
   
The rest of the station is empty except for a skeleton crew, signifying night shift has officially taken over. Emily’s eyes are burning from lack of sleep, her shoulders aching from so many hours bent over files. She reaches up, rubs at the muscles at the base of her neck, but it offers little relief. She is exhausted, her reserves are exhausted, and she knows she should pack up and head back to the hotel. Tell Reid to do the same. Instead, she stands, stretches a little, and heads to the small kitchenette to fumble around for fresh grounds to make a new pot of coffee. Throws out the old filter and rinses the pot out to ease some of the burnt taste she picked up on earlier. She pours two cups – one black, the other with too many heaping spoonfuls of sugar and creamer to count.  
   
Reid is surprised to see her but smiles his thanks when she places the cup in front of him. The smile transforms into something altogether different, something brighter when he takes a sip and finds it exactly the way he likes. It only lasts for a brief moment, though, before he schools his expression into something neutral, something she has become all too familiar with.  
   
Years ago, they wouldn’t have hesitated when Hotch told them to leave and regroup. More often than not, however, when they returned to the hotel they would find their way to each other, spread the files on the floor of some dingy hotel room, order in something greasy. They would spend a few extra hours playing ideas off of each other, formulating theories, attempting to make sense of the unthinkable.  
   
The distance between them now is palpable. The silence of the empty station presses uncomfortably into her skin and lingers there. This is not how they used to be with each other. Emily wishes so much that she could fool herself into believing the divide is new, a result of her doubt and his disappointment in her. But it’s not. It’s been there for years, since that moment in JJ’s kitchen when she crossed a line and then promptly redrew it more boldly, more irrevocably thereafter.    
   
It is slight, the change, unnoticeable to anyone but her probably, but it is there, and Emily feels desperate to erase it.  
   
Sliding into a seat across from him she murmurs, “You should get some rest,” simply because it is the first thing that comes to mind.  
   
He’s looking at the map when he replies automatically, “So should you.”  
   
Emily nods. Watches as he continues to draw line after line on the map, frustrating himself further. He’s drawn and erased so many times the paper is nearly threadbare.  
   
“Are you okay?”  
   
His eyebrows raise. “Yeah, I just…” He motions to the map, the files, the board with the dead girls faces on it. He looks lost for a second before he rights himself. “I just can’t get it to make sense.”  
   
Again, she nods. Picks up her coffee and takes a sip. Despite her efforts, it is still shitty police station coffee and she winces a little as she swallows it down. They’re quiet again and if she focuses enough Emily swears she can hear the sound of the refrigerator humming in the breakroom. Her eyes flick to her watch out of habit. One o’clock in the morning. She knows she should pack up and go, make a try for sleep, but instead she shifts in her seat, pulling her left leg towards her chest so she can rest her chin atop her bent knee.  
   
“Are we okay?”  
   
He gives her a funny look. She knows he is thinking about Salt Lake as he taps the pencil he’s holding between his fingers against the desk.  
   
“Why wouldn’t we be?”  
   
It probably isn’t the right time for this and she knows it. But she also knows there is never going to be a right time, so she presses on.  
   
“You’ve pushed me away,” she says softly. Rolls the coffee cup between her palms gently to keep herself from chewing on her nails. When he says nothing she continues, “I thought it was just since you got out of prison. I knew you were ashamed of things you did in there – although you had no reason to be – but that didn’t quite make sense because you know the things I’ve done. You know I would understand...  Then I thought it was because I disappointed you by not believing in you when you told me about Lindsey, which may still be true. But I think this happened long before that. We talked more while I was in London than we have since I’ve been home. And now, I don’t know…” Emily waves a hand between them for unnecessary emphasis. “It’s just different.”    
   
His fingers are holding the pencil so hard his knuckles are turning white. She is shocked it hasn’t broken in half under the force of his grip. His inhale is sharp and pointed as if he is preparing himself for something. Tiredly, he runs a hand through his hair. 

He never used to be this way with her, she thinks.  
   
“It was easier for me to be your friend while you were in London.”  
   
The words fall out of his mouth in a rush and Reid stares at her hard, his gaze unwavering as if to say you really want to do this now?  
   
Emily does, feel as though she has to before it drives her insane, and knows she is crossing a line as she asks gently, “Why didn’t you come see me? I asked you every week for a year—”  
   
“—You know why,” he snaps, loudly, and she can see the agitation breaking through the surface. He tosses the pencil across the table and she watches as rolls onto the floor. A few of the officers glance towards them. Reid takes note and adjusts himself accordingly. Clears his throat so when he speaks again his tone is even, but pointed, forceful almost. “You know why. You kissed me. _You_ kissed _me_ and I apologized for it even though it was a lie. And then you left. You ran away, again —”    
   
“—I didn’t run —”  
   
“—That’s what you’re choosing to focus on? Really?”  
   
Emily opens her mouth to say something but the words catch. She feels her throat go dry and swallows around it. Her fingers wrap around the cup in her hands more tightly, her knuckles white now, and watches as Reid watches her, his gaze sharp, in tune with her every move. Profiling her.    
   
She does not look away and she does not attempt to hide anything when she murmurs, “I lied too.”  
   
His mouth presses into a thin line and he looks almost pained at the sound of her words. Still, he continues to hold her gaze. It’s unnerving, the way he stares at her. It reminds her of Salt Lake, how she had felt as though he could see right into her, and it steals the breath right out of her lungs. She tries to remain still under his scrutiny; focuses her attention on him. Knows how his mind works and knows he is likely running in the same circles she has been, only much more efficiently as he catalogs looks, touches, entire conversations looking for some sort of meaning.  
   
Tiredly, he mumbles, “A lot of good this does us now.”  
   
There is no reply she can think of worth muttering, so she simply says nothing. On instinct, her hand moves to her mouth, thumbnail finally finding home between her teeth. She chews until she tastes copper, feels an immediate release of tension as the pain sears for a few seconds before disappearing.  
   
“What do you want, Emily?”  
   
It is a loaded question and it isn’t offered kindly.  Her eyes flick towards his. He is still watching her. Emily recognizes a certain amount of impatience to him, an underlying irritability that has become the new normal. These things have always been there, threatening just below the surface, but only making themselves known when somebody pushed him too hard or too far. They are brought into the light more easily now, his frustration tolerance drastically lower. It’s to be expected, she knows. A person cannot go through what he has and not remain unchanged.  
   
It doesn’t bother her, this new version of Reid. Not like it does JJ and Garcia who worry from a distance or Rossi who pretends to be unfazed, but is anything but. Emily accepts Reid for what he is now – changed, for better and for worse. Despite the acceptance, she still feels as though she is losing him. Longs for him in a way she cannot quite explain. That cannot be explained away as friendly or even as romantic or a quiet wish for what was. 

It is more than that. It has always been more with him.  
    
“I want us to be friends,” she says. The coffee in her hand is already starting to cool and she finds herself missing the warmth. “We were friends before all of this. I want us to be that way again. I want you to let me back in. To stop shutting me out.”    
   
It all sounds so incredibly simple and the reality will likely be anything but. She expects him to say something of the sort, to deny her, but instead, there is only silence again. 

 

 

   
San Diego has traffic even at two o’clock in the morning and they sit in it for a good twenty minutes as they travel the few miles back to the hotel.  
   
There is a brief discussion of the case before they both realized they were too tired to make any sense of their scattered thoughts. Otherwise, they barely talk at all. The exhaustion continues to dig in without remorse and most of the time they just sit there, listening to the hum of the engine and blinking at the break lights in front of them. Emily chews on her fingernails and Reid taps his fingers against his knee in a rhythm she recognizes but cannot quite place. It isn’t comfortable, the silence, but it isn’t uncomfortable either.  
   
It’s only when they are in the elevator of the hotel, Emily watching the numbers climb higher and higher as it nears their floor that Reid speaks again.  
   
“I have been shutting you out,” he admits quietly. He makes a show of adjusting the strap of the messenger bag slung over his shoulder. He doesn’t look at her then, instead focusing on his feet. His converses have dirt on them, the shoelaces fraying at the ends. “I am sorry for that, Emily. It was for all the reasons you said and also because I was just being stubborn. Especially since everything with my mom. I’ve –” he stops and takes in a deep breath. His fingers continue to fidget with the strap over his shoulder. “I’ve been struggling. I can admit that now. The things I did in there and the downward spiral my mom is in… it has been difficult for me … And I do need help.”  
   
At her side, her fingers itch to reach for him, to offer some sort of comfort. Emily finds herself having to curl her hand into a fist to keep from reaching out.  
   
“Then let me help you.”  
   
He doesn’t respond, but he does look at her then. She watches his mouth turn just slightly near the left corner. The smile he offers her is brief and a little bit wary, but it reaches his eyes. He looks older than she remembers, faint lines crinkling at the corners of his eyes and mouth. She remembers the first time she met him then, how the youth and innocence still radiated off of him in waves despite everything he had already been through, despite how unfair life had been to him at such a young age. She hates the job for taking so much of that away from him, for hardening him in all the wrong ways.    
   
The elevator dings and the doors slide open. When they step onto their floor they both murmur _goodnight_ to the other almost simultaneously. 

Reid goes left and Emily goes right.  
   
When she reaches her door and slides the key card into the slot, she looks back with a brief glance over her shoulder.  
   
He is already gone.  
   
   
   
   
 

 

What sleep she did manage was restless. She tosses and turns, jolts awake at the smallest of sounds. She is the first one to return to the police station later that morning. Officers are filtering in and out continuously, signaling yet another change of shift. She smiles polite hellos to faces she barely recognizes, nods to those she doesn’t. She’s tired and she knows it shows.  The murder board is the first thing she sees as she turns the corner towards the still half-empty bullpen, those innocent faces with their toothless grins reminding her that she is no closer to justice.  
   
It is day nine and Emily wonders if today is the day she gets the call informing her another child has been lost and then found, their life lost too soon to a violent end.  
   
Emily isn’t quite ready to face the reality of it all yet, needs a few more moments of quiet to get herself together, to prepare herself for the day ahead. 

Backtracking, she takes the stairs and heads to the roof.  
   
The metal door is heavy as she pushes it open. The sun is just starting to grace the horizon and the humidity of the early morning presses into her skin. Warms her to the bones. This isn’t the first time the team has been in San Diego and it likely won’t be the last. Years ago, one of the local detectives had told her about this spot, how on a clear day you can see and hear the ocean. He told her this is where he went after long days and even longer weeks. After those cases that haunted him. His name was Daniels and he retired a few years before. Died not long after – or so she heard from the detective working the case with them now when she asked after him. 

It’s a trend she sees in those who make a career at catching murderers – the body doesn’t know how to exist without the constant stress of the job and has a difficult time compensating without it. If it hasn’t already, illness rears its ugly head not long after retirement commences, and people find their reserves have already been used up. She knows Daniels’ fate is likely similar to what the future holds for her.     
   
Peering over the edge of the building Emily watches as the street comes to life below and feels wonder at how she can feel both giant and insignificant at the same time.  
   
Behind her, the door creaks open again and she knows it is Reid without having to look. Recognizes the sound of his gait, the initial hesitation in his step and the eventual commitment. He comes to stand next to her, pressing a cup of coffee into her hands. He is careful not to touch her.  The coffee is fresh, something local, and no doubt delicious because he always manages to scope out the best places. She allows him to see the surprise on her face and smiles her gratitude. Welcomes this for what it is – an attempt at reconciliation.  
   
Nodding, he murmurs _good morning_ as he settles in beside her.  
   
On the street below a siren wails and offers a crude interruption. She ignores it. If she squints hard enough Emily thinks she can actually see the ocean in the distance as the sun continues to rise, and for a brief moment, with Reid beside her, it seems as though the world is bathed in brilliant hues of orange and pink.

 

 

 

 

   
[s e v e n]  
   
   
“I thought about leaving.”    
   
They are on the plane, somewhere over Arizona. The killer eventually gets sloppy, but only after another body washes up on a beach. It takes thirteen days for the BAU to close the case. None of them consider it as a tally in the win column.  
   
Around them, everyone is asleep in their respective corners, worn out from jet leg and the constant rush of adrenaline that always accompanies a case. Reid sits across from her, gaze fixated out the window, on the sun dying on the horizon. Between them sits empty coffee cups and a few files, photos of their next case on full display in all of their morbid glory. The work never stops, and she was lost in it for a while, had to wait for a beat before Reid’s words sunk in and made sense.  
   
Her fingers reach for her empty coffee cup, fingering the lid. She presses her mouth into a thin line and nods.  Waits.  
   
What she wants to say is: _You forget, I know you._  
   
There is a span of time where neither says anything, and Reid simply continues to stare out the window, and Emily at him.  
   
When he does speak, finally, his voice is quiet, thoughtful almost. “I thought I had finally reached my limit for the horror and obscene. I was tired of this job taking things away from me. I even wrote my resignation letter and thought about giving it to you. But when I thought about what I would do, what my life would be like…” he trails off slowly and sighs.  
   
“We are the job,” she supplies for him quietly.    
   
What she means is: _we are the same._  
   
Reid looks like he knows, like he is reading between the lines. Emily figures he probably is.   
   
   
 

 

 

 

     
[e i g h t]  
   
   
After San Diego, Emily reaches out to him because she knows his biggest weakness is his desperate need to not appear weak, even to those who know him best and know he is anything but.  
   
So, Emily simply shows up on a Saturday, fresh coffee and his favorite donuts in hand, and doesn’t leave when he tells her to after it becomes apparent Diana is having a particularly bad morning. Reid can’t afford the nursing care Diana needs around the clock, so at night and whenever they are in-between cases he takes over. It’s wearing him thin and it doesn’t take a profiler to see it.  
   
Today, Diana’s paranoia is in overdrive and when she sees Emily she recognizes her, but can’t place her, and becomes fixated on the idea that Emily is a government agent sent to spy on her. Diana starts hitting her own head with her fist, insistent there is a tracking device that has been implanted in her skull. At one point, she even goes for a knife to cut it, which doesn’t scare Emily as much as it probably would an outsider. Luckily Reid has long since taken anything that can be used as a weapon out of the apartment, but all that does is fuel Diana’s paranoia and anger further, making her even more desperate.  
   
Reid attempts to play interference, to soothe his mother, but Diana doesn’t recognize him as her son, only as a stranger, and the whole situation is horrible for a good forty-five minutes before she simply decides to settle down.    
   
And then suddenly Diana is lucid – still paranoid, but lucid – and recognizes the both of them with a blinding smile.  
   
It is surreal almost, the sudden shift, and Emily watches as a part of Reid breaks in the aftermath.  
   
After, Emily sits comfortably on the couch between them and listens to the older woman intently as she alternates between showing Emily endless pictures of Reid from all ages of life and discussing the intricacies of 15th-century literature in the most obscure and tangential way. Reid is impressed she can follow his mother’s loose train of thought and Diana voices appreciation that Emily can recite Margery Kemp from memory. Together the two women gush over how adorable Reid was with his long legs, toothy grin, and wire-rimmed glasses that were too big for his face. For the most part, Reid pretends to be unmoved by it all, but Emily can see the way the tips of his ears turn pink and cheeks flush when she smiles at him.    
   
His obliviousness to how ridiculously adored he is by those around him never ceases to amaze Emily.  
   
While Diana naps in the other room later in the day, Reid confides that the stress of her abduction has seemed to heighten the severity of her spiral from wellness, hastening it dramatically. Her good days are becoming less frequent, and he forewarns Emily that when she wakes again there will likely be a repeat of this morning as her sundowning behaviors have become almost unmanageable.  Reid lists off statistics on how people with higher cognitive function often see faster declines, about the genetic heritability of the disease, the proposed efficacy of the medications. He tells Emily that he feels stuck because he realizes now there is no way of stopping the progression of the dementia, and the focus needs to instead be on managing her schizophrenia, making her comfortable, but the neuroleptics used to do so are likely worsening her cognition. It’s a vicious, never-ending cycle. He talks to Emily in great detail about the structural changes that are occurring within his mother’s brain –  the death of neurons, the creation of plagues and tangles, the shrinking and shriveling up of the hippocampus and cortex which is causing the inability to create new memories and recall old ones.  
   
Reid usually talks in facts and statistics because it helps him to remain impersonal and detached, but in this situation, it only heightens his emotions. It frustrates him that he can discuss every intricacy of the disease process, recall with accuracy exactly what biological process is happening to cause his mother’s symptomatology, but he cannot stop it. 

There is no stopping this. 

The more he talks, the more frustrated he gets. She can see it in every inch of him – in the rigid line of his shoulders, the way his left hand clenches into a fist in his lap then releases, palm pressing flat against his thigh for a few seconds before the process repeats all over again.  
   
At some point, Emily acts without thinking and reaches for him. Bridges the distance and lays her hand over his clenched fingers, tries to ignore the burning rejection when Reid recoils the moment they touch. He doesn’t move away completely, though, and Emily stays patient, waits for him to respond in kind, to open his palm and allow their fingers to tangle. The sigh he releases when he does is one of both relief and exhaustion and she feels it reverberate through her.    
   
In the other room, Diana stirs, the sound of the mattress creaking as she wakes. Emily watches as Reid squares his shoulders, steels himself as if he is readying for battle. Something deep within her aches for him.    
   
He tells her she should probably go.  
   
She stays.     
   
   
   
 

 

 

 

[n i n e]  
   
   
The following Saturday when she knocks on his door, Reid doesn’t even bother to argue with her. He merely opens the door wider, his version of an invitation to enter. Emily is one step ahead though, already crossing the threshold.  
   
It does something funny to the inside of her chest, the way Diana recognizes her immediately. It’s a good day, Reid tells her, and the older woman’s smile is bright and wide as it stretches across her mouth, her excitement growing as she tugs Emily’s hand and guides her over to the couch. As they settle Emily spares a glance over her shoulder towards Reid who is still standing dumbly in the middle of the entry way, emotions flickering across his face in rapid succession as he watches them carefully.  
   
When he smiles at her then it is both kind and just so typically Reid.  
   
She welcomes the familiarity.     
   
   
   
   
 

 

 

[t e n]  
 

It is slow, the way they grow back together. 

It has to be. Emily knows this and tries to practice patience where she has very little. It is slow because they are different now – older, wiser, forever changed by circumstance and time. They are not the same people they were years before. Experience has taught them not to be so reckless with their trust, with the way they open themselves up to the outside world.    
   
Years before Emily had kissed Reid as if on a dare and didn’t stick around to deal with the fallout.  
   
He had accused her of running away once, and if Emily is honest with herself she knows there is quite a bit of truth behind the accusation. Always, she has loved fiercely those who mattered, those she felt deserved it, but when it came to allowing others in, allowing others to see the truth of who she is at the very core, it has always been a near impossible task. Emily could blame this on a lot of things, she does blame this on a lot of things – her dysfunctional relationship with her mother, for starters, the way she was taught at such an early age to depend on herself first and others never. The way she played fast and loose with morals in her formative years, not caring who it affected, and the bitter taste she still gets now, years later, when she thinks of those who may have been caught up in the messes she created. There is also, of course, the years spent undercover and all of the morally ambiguous things she did in the name of democracy under the guise of Lauren Reynolds and all the other aliases the agency gave her and she seamlessly made her own.    
   
Emily is who she is, a summation of all of her choices both good and bad. While she will never apologize for it, experience has taught her to be wary of allowing others to know these parts of herself she tries so very hard to keep hidden. For allowing others to know you, all of you, makes you vulnerable, and vulnerability is a weakness Emily never felt she could afford.    
   
Years before, Emily kissed Reid and Reid kissed her back like he knew her, all of her, and it scared the hell out of her.  
   
London was an easy choice, one that felt right at the time. It had both everything and nothing at all to do with Reid, with that moment in JJ’s kitchen where a line was crossed and then hastily redrawn. Emily hadn’t lied when she told Morgan that it was difficult for her to be comfortable in her old life after everything that happened with Doyle. But the real truth is it made her unbelievably uncomfortable how ready she was to put down roots, to lay a foundation for a future in DC. It felt completely unnatural to her, to someone who had spent decades trying to keep the outside world from getting too close.  
   
Now, Emily and Reid grow back together, slowly trying to repair the damage time has caused. They cement new routines and make attempts to re-establish old ones. It’s different, this new version of them. Better in some ways. 

On the job, nothing essentially changes. Even when all else fails, the work never changes. It remains their constant, their common ground. The most comfortable and consistent aspect of their lives.  
   
What is different, what is better, is the way they are slowly carving out spaces for each other in their lives again.  
   
Text messages sent on a whim in the middle of the night simply because something reminds her of him no longer go ignored. When he finds out _Solaris_ is playing at a local theatre in town and asks her to go with him, again, she doesn’t say no. Makes time for him despite the piles of paperwork on her desk. Emily is bored out of her mind, has difficulty making the translation because her Russian is still only passable, but Reid’s wide-eyed enjoyment, the way the outing seems to lift his spirits and cause him to grin like a lunatic, makes it worthwhile. Saturdays become a trusted routine. When they aren’t traveling for a case she shows up at his apartment and sits with Diana while he reads. Helps him deescalate her when she is having a particularly rough day; knows when to step back when she is having an awful day. It becomes an art form, Reid tells her, the way Emily is able to disarm his mother on her some days with nothing but misdirection and soothing tones. Reid never tells her how thankful he is to have her there, to have somebody to have patience when his ends, to tell Diana _Spencer is coming later, try not to worry_ when she doesn’t recognize him standing right in front of her. He never tells her because he doesn’t need to. Emily sees it in the way he regards her after, in the thankful turn of his mouth as he smiles at her fondly.  
   
There are nights when Emily will stay for dinner and others where she doesn’t. Sometimes they will order in, others they will cook, together. Diana does whatever it is that is keeping her calm and content in the moment and Reid agonizes over the details of a recipe his mother sometimes picks, making sure it is precise and exact.  
   
Emily merely sips her wine and watches, mouth quirking as she tells him to just wing it, that things will be okay if everything isn’t exactly as it should be. She ignores the irony. 

   
   
 

 

 

 

[e l e v e n]   
   
   
It is important to note, Emily thinks, that this restructuring, this attempt at finding a new normal has nothing to do with love, and everything to do with the understanding they once had of each other that somehow managed to get lost along the way.  
   
Reid had told her he loved her once, and the past tense was deliberate, intentional. Served as another line drawn between them.  
   
Emily is sure to remind herself of this all the time.  
 

 

 

 

 

[t w e l v e]  
   
   
The first time Reid comes over to her place he shows up unannounced, late on a Tuesday, just a mere few hours after they parted ways at the office. It is not a rule that Reid never comes to her place, it is just the way things have worked out. So much of his life now is consumed with all things Diana and Emily knew that if they were going to make a go at regaining what they had lost in terms of their friendship, she would have to do most of the leg work. She accepted this the moment she went to him all those months before. It is likely overcompensation, a twisted form of penance, nut it felt necessary in the beginning, and now it feels something akin to habit.  
   
Emily hadn’t known any other way to fix things besides just simply showing up.  
    
Outside it is spitting rain. His hair is wet at the ends, his shoes muddy. Reid stares at her both expectantly and unsure, waiting for an invitation in as he rocks back on his heels. Emily opens the door wider, steps to the side to let him pass. It is awkward, the way they stand in the foyer for too long of a moment. Emily watches as his eyes flick first towards the sight of her bare feet against the dark hardwood floor and then to scan the contents of her apartment. He catalogs the bare walls, the unpacked boxes, the suitcases still sitting upright and tidy in a corner collecting dust. Reid’s eyes squint like he is considering something, and she sees the unspoken question there.  
   
With a shrug, she murmurs, “Never got around to unpacking,” and walks further into the apartment. Motions for him to follow. He does but doesn’t exactly look convinced at her explanation. Which is mostly fair. Her track record does not help her here.  
   
In the beginning, before the truth about Hotch came to light and her temporary assignment became permanent, there had been a hotel. This was the first and only place she looked at and it was chosen mostly out of sheer convenience and need. She had sent for her things in London and Mark had boxed them up neatly and with care, organizing them by matter of importance rather than by room. He had known it would likely be some time before she would settle. He had also known what she was too busy to admit: he would not be coming to join her.  Most of those boxes remain untouched, piled in stacks in what should be her dining room but is mostly just storage. There were cases that stretched on for too long, one right after another, and the adjustment to her new position was more difficult than she had anticipated. Then, of course, Reid went and got himself arrested and the whole world just sort of stopped for a while. There has been little energy left for much else.  
   
With him here now, standing amongst her mess, it is stifling to her just how empty the place feels.  
   
In the living room, there is a microwave dinner mostly forgotten on the coffee table, a glass of wine nearly gone sitting next to it. The television is on low, barely discernable, but she still reaches for the remote to mute it. Moves files off of the couch to make room for him. When Emily turns towards him again she finds him still cataloging her things, an odd look on his face she can’t quite pinpoint. She murmurs his name, drawing him out of his thoughts, and when he takes a seat next to her he just sort of collapses into it, hands scrubbing over his face tiredly as he leans his head against the back of the couch.  
   
He is quiet for a long moment before he starts to talk. “I know what I have to do. I know what I need to do. And I need to say it aloud so I can get used to the idea.”.  
   
It makes almost no sense on the surface, but Emily knows exactly what he is trying to say. Diana almost burned the apartment building down last week. It was a fluke, a lapse in the overlap between Reid and the in-home nurse after his workday ran long. He was five miles away when the nurse called and told him Diana was asleep and medicated, but her own child was sick, and she had to go. She’d already stayed hours past her allotted time. Reid felt guilty and figured it was only ten minutes before he would be home. He thought it would be okay. But then there was a backup on the freeway, and ten minutes turned into twenty-five, and when he finally got home he rushed through the door to find his mother attempting to cook herself a second dinner and half the kitchen was on fire.  
   
Emily and JJ had gone over the next night to help him with the mess. Cleaned up the ash and soot and tried to put things back together. From afar, Emily watched Reid carefully and knew he was struggling internally with an eventuality he had been trying to outrun for the past year – his mother needed more care than he was able to give.  
   
“It’s okay,” she mumbles, reaching a hand to rest on his arm. “It’s okay, Spencer.”  
   
His hand is steady when it reaches for hers, his fingers warm as they tangle between her own. Emily stares at their joined hands for longer than she probably should. Ignores the coil of something unfamiliar but wonderfully pleasant in the pit of her belly. Tries to figure out when this change occurred, when he stopped shying away from her. When he began reaching for her.  
   
The sudden influx of noise when he begins to talk again startles her out of her thoughts. Emily finds herself having to focus on the movements of his mouth to make sense of what he is saying.  
   
“I am so angry with myself,” he says. “I spent so much time trying to outsmart this fucking disease. I almost ruined everything trying to fix something that I knew couldn’t be fixed. And now all I have to show for it is all this wasted time.”  
   
He is wrecked and on the verge of tears. The topic of Diana and her future has never been strictly off limits, but rather something Emily knows not to bring up and Reid doesn’t like to put into words. They talk around it mostly. Make vague allusions in conversation, and exchange quiet looks as his mother unravels more and more each day. Her periods of lucidity are becoming less frequent, her mood swings more frequent, and her ability to reality test in regard to her paranoia and delusions all but non-existent despite a hefty neuroleptic regimen. Reid has exhausted nearly all of his resources for the in-home care, for Lorna the only nurse that Diana can tolerate and has been able to build a rapport with. Something had to give, and Reid decided it would be the work. Asked Emily not to send him on cases and rather consult from Quantico, hanging back with Garcia so he can be available if his mother needed him. And the team has made it work. It has been a struggle, but they’ve dealt with it accordingly. But now something else needs to give and Emily has been waiting for this moment, for Reid to figure out what he has likely known the entire time.  
   
“I used to make things better, you know? That’s partly why I brought her home. I used to be able to offer some sort of comfort just by being here. But now I am not even her son. I’m just some stranger that looks like Spencer,” he tells her, laughing a little, but it is bitter and angry. He lets go of her hand to wipe at his eyes, at the tears threatening to fall there. “I don’t think I can do it anymore.”  
   
Emily shifts until she is mostly facing him, her back settling against the corner of the couch. She draws up her knees to her chest, considers her words carefully. Knows this is a decision that has to be made by him and him alone.  Even though she wants to tell him she believes it is the right one, wants to give him reassurance, to tell him she doesn’t think Diana would want him to keep punishing himself like this, the words don’t feel right, so she continues to say nothing.  
   
Instead, she merely listens as he talks – sometimes too fast, sometimes too slow. She listens carefully and waits patiently for him to continue when he has to stop and take a breath because the emotions just become too overwhelming. Reid tells her about Ellendale, a place recommended by many colleagues that is practically equal distance from work and his apartment and how the location alone makes it ideal. He likes that he can be there in less than thirty minutes in the event of emergencies, that he can still have control over _something_. It is a nice place, he tells her, although he explains the term nice is relative and it is as nice as nursing homes can be. He went to look at it earlier in the week with Lorna and it reminds him of Bennington. Reid thinks his mom will like the familiarity even if she can’t figure out why. He tells Emily that he spent hours with the doctors discussing her treatment regimen, making sure they could keep her neurologist from Houston in the loop even though the disease process was too far advanced and there is nothing much they can do for the dementia. It has taken over, slowly taking everything he knows and loves about the only person who has known him and loved him his whole life.  
   
Reid also tells her how surprised the staff was that he was able to manage her for this long. How they told him that time was a gift, how he should be proud at how well he managed. He is especially angry when he talks about this, how the words that he knows were meant to be kind only made him sick with guilt and how he can’t get rid of the nauseous feeling in the pit of his stomach. His hands clench at his sides as he talks about the way one of the nurses had laid a hand on his shoulder and told him _we’ll take good care of her, son_ like she already knew everything there was to know about his mother. Already knew how to distinguish between her constantly shifting moods, how to qualm her paranoia when it terrorizes her, that she likes to read Kemp in the morning and Chaucer at night, and, most importantly, how her scrapbook needs to be at arm’s length at all times because it is her grounding mechanism.  
   
He talks until he is too tired to do so anymore and after the silence stretches on until it becomes comfortable. Outside it is still raining, although harder now. The steady cadence of it hitting the glass of the windows filling the space around them.  
   
The television remains on mute as the eleven o’clock news plays. They watch in silence. Read the headlines as they scroll across the bottom of the screen.  
   
There was a shootout in East Baltimore. Three dead – all cops.  
   
A kid is missing in the district.    
   
Out west a forest burns.  
   
Both of them look away.  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
The rain has finally decided to let up when he goes to leave.  
   
They stand half in her doorway and half on her porch as they say goodbye. Above them, her porch light flickers on and off, the dim glow hiding some of the wear and tear the years have caused, the marks they carry from their collective failures.  
   
Her stoop is a tiny stretch of concrete that is barely made for two people, yet neither move to make room for the other and instead stand mostly in the other’s space.  Reid draws her into a hug and Emily folds against him easily. She isn’t sure which of them lingers; isn't sure it even matters. He smells like rain and coffee, like Reid, and when he pulls back he searches her face for something. His own expression is unreadable. Emily briefly wonders if he learned that from her, the art of hiding himself away so efficiently. Hates herself a little for the likely possibility. 

It’s brief, the way his eyes flicker to her mouth when they pull apart, and if she were someone else it likely would have gone unnoticed. Would have missed the sharp inhale and the eventual sigh. 

They’ve been here before, she remembers. Experienced a moment like this just before a line is crossed and all the possibilities of the future spill out before them in a jumbled mess of _maybe_ and _what ifsdo not venture here_.  Emily shivers as she plays back the last and only time they’ve ever kissed. Steps closer to him. At their sides, her fingers graze his, and Emily finds herself wanting for so many things in this moment that she is overwhelmed with it all, her head spinning with the possibilities, and –  
   
Reid clears his throat and steps away. It’s jarring and sets her world right again.  
   
“See you tomorrow?” he asks.  
   
Emily nods. Her mouth forces a smile. “Of course.”  
   
   
   
 

 

There is a string of particularly good days the week leading up to Diana’s move to Ellendale. Reid prefers to refer to it by name, rather than simply as a nursing home and Emily abides, makes it a habit even in her own thoughts simply because he asks.  
   
The week of relative calm leading up to the transition makes it easier for Diana, but near impossible for Reid. She is still mostly aware of her surroundings and is clearly afraid, but manages a good show for her son. Grabs his hand and tells him it is okay. Tells him he is doing the right thing, that she understands when he begins to cry as they unpack what little belongings she has into a tiny room where she would likely spend the rest of her life. The good days used to rejuvenate him, now they only wear him down. Make him feel weak and selfish because they provide a false sense of security and lead him to believe he can still manage everything when in reality he cannot.  
   
JJ is the one to tell him this, and Emily is grateful that it didn’t have to be her to break his heart with the painful reality of the situation. Both women go with him to take Diana, a front of unwavering support. They are both there to coax him away when the staff requests politely for him to leave so his mother can get acquainted. They are both there in the car on the way home as he tries desperately to hold it together. And they are both there much later when he finally unravels as they start to clean his apartment and rearrange furniture and he tells them to stop, tells them he feels as though they are erasing his mother from his life piece by piece and he can’t stand it.  
   
He falls apart and for the longest time, Emily and JJ find themselves at a loss as to what to do, how to make this better for him. JJ is the one to act first, to go to him, to pull him into a hug and not let go. When some time has passed and he is calmer, JJ carefully says _I wish I knew her before._ Carefully asks Reid to tell them his favorite memory of her. The three of them spend the afternoon huddled on Reid’s couch, exchanging stories and listening to him talk about the woman she once was and still is some days, and how proud he is to be her son. It gets a little morose at times, probably because Diana isn’t dead but rather alive and mostly well today, but it helps Reid to remember who she was to him before the dementia starting take parts of her away. 

Sometime around dinner, Garcia stops by, bags of takeout from his favorite Thai place in hand. Together they all sit on the floor, using his coffee table as a buffet, and eat together. Reid has to use his fingers because he has never been able to figure out chopsticks and he can’t remember where he hid all the silverware. He starts laughing the third time he drops food on the floor, and it is how Emily knows he is going to be okay. She is reminded then, as she watches him listen to whatever story Garcia is telling him that makes him smile so easily, that he has always been stronger than they give him credit for. 

Later, Emily stays long after JJ and Garcia leave. Continues to pick up here and there. Tries to rearrange some of his books the way she knows he likes although his system is complicated and makes sense only to him so she gives up halfway through. She cleans the kitchen instead. Reconnects the stove.  Makes a mental note to bring some groceries the next time she stops by.  
   
She finds him in the room that hasn’t really been his for a long time, sitting at the foot of an unmade bed. There is a photo, worn and fraying in his hands. His fingers worry the edges. For someone who takes up so much space and is so vital to the lives of those around him, he looks so small in this moment and the sight unsettles her.  
   
“You can go,” he says. “I’ll be okay.”  
   
“I’m good here.”  
   
The smile she offers is small but kind, and she moves without thinking and crosses the distance between them. Finds home next to him on the edge of the bed. Her shoulder is flush against his and he leans into it, allows her to carry some of his weight. His fingers still worry the edges of the photograph in his hands. Emily can’t see what it is but imagines it is something from yesteryear, a younger Diana, and even younger Reid.  
   
“She told me she is looking forward to my letters again. That she’s missed them.”  
   
The smile he wears as he talks is both sad and wistful. He reaches for a book somewhere near his feet and presses the picture between the pages. Carefully puts it back.  
   
“It’s been a good week.”  
   
He shakes his head. “It’s been a difficult week.”  
   
“Yeah,” she acknowledges softly, “that too.”  
   
The mattress creaks under his weight as he shifts until he is lying down on his back, his head somewhere near a pillow. She twists her neck to glance at him. Notes that his eyes are closed.  
   
“What can I do?”  
   
“I’m tired,” he tells her with a sigh. “I can’t remember the last time I slept through the night.”  
   
Emily imagines there is quite a bit of truth in that. Sees the way the past has aged him in just about all that he does and everything he is now. The careful way he carries himself. Reid didn’t want to be changed by his time in prison, by the mind games Lindsey and Cat subjected him to, but it is impossible not to be. It is impossible to remain unchanged in the face of all the evil they’ve stood witness to. 

The point is to not let it ruin you, and Emily is trying her best to help him figure that out.  
   
There is probably a line she should be mindful of now. A line she drew herself years before and was meant to be respected and never crossed again. Emily knows this. She also knows Reid. Knows his instinct is to want to be alone even whilst knowing he probably shouldn’t be. Knows he doesn’t know how to ask for such things. Knows he would never ask her to _stay,_ would never be able to find the right words to tell her he didn’t want to be alone. 

So, she simply moves to lie with him on the bed, shifting until she is comfortable, until her shoulder is once again flush with his and the mattress molds around her.  
   
When she turns her head to look at him she finds his gaze even with hers.  
   
“Try and rest,” she murmurs.  
   
Reid nods once and startles her by moving until he is on his side facing her, his head resting somewhere near her shoulder but not quite on it. The sudden closeness makes her breath catch. The rush of warmth from having him so close mingles with the rising panic swelling in the back of her throat. She swallows around it. Hears nothing but the thrumming of her pulse echoing in her ears, and the silent counting of her breaths as she tries to even them. Reid notices, of course, but does not move away. Only gives her a questioning look, as if he was asking for permission.  
   
All Emily can do is nod as he settles closer to her.  
   
   
   
 

 

 

 

[t h i r t e e n]  
   
   
It is wrong to think about kissing him then.  
   
Emily knows this.  
   
She does it anyway.  


	2. Chapter 2

[f o u r t e e n]  
   
   
Her mother dies early that spring and it rocks her world in the most unexpected way.   
   
It is a heart attack which Emily can barely wrap her head around because her mother was the picture of pristine health, all about organic and locally sustained, anti-GMOs or whatever was the hip new cause. She lectured Emily every chance she got about not being able survive on vending machine goods and coffee, and _don’t you know what that stuff does to your insides?_  
   
Emily gets the news while she is out west, in the desert of Nevada, and flies back to watch her mother’s mind and body deteriorate as her heart slowly stops beating.   
   
It’s one of the most difficult things Emily has ever witnessed – watching such a strong, self-made, self-assured woman succumb to the eventuality of life in such an agonizing way. For the days and weeks that follow every time Emily closes her eyes all she can see is her mother’s ashen face, all she can hear is the sound of her gasping for her last breath.   
   
After, there are arrangements to be made, a funeral to plan, people to console. Old friends, colleagues, and acquaintances – people she’s met once and people she’s known her whole life – ask for her time and attention so they can discuss this version of her mother she never knew. It’s an odd thing hearing people talk about the warm, friendly woman she supposes her mother could have been. It’s even odder that Emily experiences the whole thing like an outsider looking in, blindly navigating her mother’s death with no compass, and constantly failing at trying to find her bearings. She feels lost and alone and a little like she is slowly losing her mind.   
   
The bureau puts her on mandatory leave despite her arguments of how she _needs_ the work. They think she is in denial, trying to displace her grief. They are probably right, but it doesn’t make it any less true.   
   
Emily doesn’t know who she is without the work and the work is exactly why she can’t remember the last time she had talked to her mother, the last time she saw her. Emily doesn’t regret it. She knows her mother understood her affinity for her career in the sort of way only the Ambassador Prentiss could, but it doesn’t make the truth any less painful to acknowledge. She finds herself sitting at the funeral home listening to descriptions of the different type of caskets they offer and thinking about how she must have been with her mother at Christmas, because that is what family does – they see each other during the holidays, they make an effort. But then she realizes that probably wasn’t the truth. There had been a lead on Scratch around that time, and the team spent a week chasing it down only to end up with nothing. By the time they had realized he sent them on a wild goose chase, again, it was already a new year.   
   
As her mind spins and unravels, the funeral director goes on and on about the different types of wood available for the casket, the different types of services possible. All Emily can focus on is how she cannot recall last time she said _I love you._ Cannot recall the last time there was any sort of physical contact – a hug, a kiss to the cheek.   
   
Emily doesn’t taste the bile until she is throwing it up in the wastebasket next to her.   
   
The team reaches out – all of them, even Morgan all the way in Chicago – but she cannot handle hearing trite and meaningless overtures from them. From strangers, sure, but never from then. She ignores their phone calls. Starts sleeping at her mother’s estate so she didn’t have to ignore their knocks on her door.   
   
Reid sends her a text that says simply, _don’t shut me out._  
   
She turns her phone off quickly afterwards. Hides herself away.   
   
Emily is a profiler, a damn good one, and despite what others may believe she doesn’t have blindspots when it comes to herself. She can identify her own weaknesses better than anyone. Knows she is pushing them away intentionally, wants to make herself feel miserable with the loneliness, make herself sick with it because the guilt over the things she did and the things she did not do in regard to her relationship with her mother weighs too heavily on her shoulders, makes it almost unbearably heavy.   
   
She knows this, yet she still does it. She simply doesn’t know any other way.   
   
The misery is easier and far less complicated than the guilt.   
   
Still, now, Emily doesn’t know how to function as a unit when it counts the most. She doesn’t know how to depend on others the way she allows them to depend on her.   
   
Some habits, she knows, are near impossible to break. 

 

 

 

   
It rains the day of the funeral. The service is a catholic affair with a priest and a procession that is grand and everything her mother would have liked and deserved for her years of service. Still, it is a sobering moment when she’s waiting for it to begin and she realizes the row for family will include her and an Aunt she barely knows. No siblings. No significant others. No extended family. Her relationship with her mother was complicated, better from afar, but despite the walls that had been cemented between them, she was still her mother, still family even if it was in the loosest sense of the word. With that came the knowledge that at the end of the day, after everything, despite everything, Emily still had a viable connection to someone.   
   
Emily hides in the back of the church until just before the service is set to begin, but when she does walk out she holds her head high because that is what her mother taught her to do: stand tall and proud even in the face of the unthinkable.    
   
The sight of her team, every last one of them, waiting for her nearly breaks her.   
   
Carefully, she slides into the pew, right in the empty spot nestled between Reid and JJ, the one she supposes they were keeping for her. She welcomes the way JJ wraps her into a hug so tight it nearly takes the breath right out of her, the quick comforting squeeze to her shoulder from Rossi, the sight of Garcia in vibrant purple because _funerals should be a celebration of life_ as she sits next to Morgan.   
   
Emily quit being Catholic at fifteen and she goes through the motions of the service on autopilot, guided by muscle memory she can’t believe she still possesses. Her _amens_ echo a beat after everyone else’s; her voice sounds hollow, not her own. She remembers her father’s funeral decades before and can’t remember much outside of the way her heels had sunk into the wet earth and how her mother hadn’t cried until after the last guest had left, when she thought Emily had gone to sleep.   
   
It had rained that day too.   
   
When the congregation stands to watch the casket proceed to its final resting place, Emily’s line of vision blurs for perhaps the first time since the cold, sterile hospital room less than a week before. She blinks the tears away. Focuses on the bright red and blue of the American flag adorning the casket instead of how her knees feel weak, like she’s suddenly unable to hold herself upright.   
   
Just as her throat begins to constrict embarrassingly, Reid reaches for her, grabs her hand.   
   
It is instantaneous, the way she just sort of sags against him, allowing him to carry some of her weight.  

 

 

   
He finds her in her mother’s study after everyone else has left. There is a glass of scotch sweating all over the fingers of her one hand, the other near her mouth. What is left of her thumbnail is between her teeth.   
   
He does not ask if she is okay and she is thankful.   
   
Instead: “What can I do?”   
   
Emily takes a small sip of her drink and revels in the way the alcohol warms her. “Did you draw the short straw?” She raises an eyebrow in challenge, her attempt for familiar ground. Her voice is hoarse but still manages to crack around the edges. Emily turns her back to him then, resting her weight against the ornate desk that used to belong to her mother.   
   
“When was the last time you ate?”   
   
He is staring at her. She can feel it even with her back to him, and she knows he is choosing his words carefully.   
   
Shrugging, she murmurs, “I can’t remember,” and it is the truth.   
   
It has been days since she has eaten anything substantial, since she has put anything in her body except for coffee and alcohol, and she should feel something resembling pangs of hunger, but instead she just feels empty and sick.   
   
The sound of his footsteps alert her that he is bridging the distance between them and suddenly he is right in her line of sight, right in front of her. He reaches for the drink in her hand and looks surprised when she moves it out of his grasp. He says her name then, just once, a warning. It sets her on edge. She doesn’t know why but she makes a show of finishing her glass and pouring another. It’s gone in a single swallow and she has a heavy pour as she fills the glass again. She motions to him with the half-empty bottle of perfectly-aged scotch as if to say _want one?_ even though she knows his answer before he offers it. Still, he shakes his head politely. Shoves his hands deep into his pockets.  
   
He’s angry with her. Emily can see that now, even with the alcohol clouding her vision. Angry with her for pushing him away, probably, shutting him out after everything they’ve been doing to rebuild their relationship. The look of him now with his back straight, shoulders square, and gaze hardened as he regards her reminds her of that span of time after Doyle when he felt so righteous in the aftermath of her betrayal. He’s angry, and she is surprised to find that she wants him to be angry with her, wants him to yell at her for being selfish, to scream at her for being stupid because maybe, just maybe, it will drown out some of the mess going on inside her head.   
   
She takes another sip of her drink and feels numb. “I haven’t really cried. Not since the hospital. What do you think about that, Spencer?”   
   
The sound of her saying his name must startle Reid because his face shifts from one of concern to something else entirely. Something she can’t quite identify. He clears his throat, reaches for her drink again. This time she allows him to take it and set it to the side.   
   
Quietly he tells her, “I think you are looking for answers that can’t be found in the bottom of a bottle.”  
   
There is no logical sequence to what happens to next.   
   
Emily just simply stares at him dumbly, good and drunk by now, and thinks idly about kissing him. She plays back the moment in JJ’s kitchen all those years ago, remembers the warmth that had filled her as her mouth pressed against his, and wants nothing more than to feel that warmth again, wants nothing more than to feel connected to him again in some sort of tangible way.   
   
So she kisses him.   
   
She reaches forward and tangles her fingers in the silk of his tie and crushes her mouth to his like it something she has always done. Something she is allowed to do.   
   
It is a violent kiss, all teeth and bite, and it must startle him because for a moment he doesn’t move, doesn’t even breathe. But then the moment passes and he is kissing her back, just as violently, hands framing her face, twisting in her hair, pulling a little. The moan it elicits from her is low and guttural and that must propel him into some sort of action because he pushes himself against her, into the desk, the edge of it digging into her spine. The angle is all wrong, makes her twist at an almost unnatural angle, but she kisses him through it. A hand leaves her face, drops to her hip, wrinkles the fabric of her dress as his fingers dig in there. Pulls her closer. The warmth she wanted so desperately hits her like a storm, twists and coils with the arousal in the pit of her stomach.   
   
Reid tastes exactly like she remembers.   
   
It’s too much, this moment with him, but it also isn’t nearly enough. She wants him. She wants all of him, she thinks, all the time, and Emily is lightheaded from the revelation of this, from the feel of him pressed against her, the way his mouth and hands tear her wide open. The way he fills up the empty void within her.   
   
So she tells him just that.   
   
The way he just sort of stills after ruins her. She tries to kiss him again, presses her mouth to his in the most embarrassing way, her _please_ broken and desperate. She feels so lost, and curls both of her hands into a fist around the fabric of his shirt, trying to pull him as close as possible. To anchor herself. 

Reid merely shakes his head, whispers _no_ and _not like this_ as he presses a kiss to her forehead and wraps himself around her.   
   
The sob that comes then, the one that has been on the verge all day, nearly rips her apart as it escapes her throat.   
   
Reid holds her as she cries and long after. 

 

 

 

   
Later, when Emily wakes, she is in a bed with no recollection of how she got there, still in her dress from the funeral.  Daylight is just beginning to filter in through the windows and it hurts her head something fierce, tilting the room on its axis. She presses her eyes closed, breathes slowly in preparation to face the world. This brand new world she hasn’t been able to find her footing in yet.     
   
She turns her head to find Reid next to her, awake, watching her. It doesn’t startle her as much as it probably should. He is also still dressed in his suit from the funeral. His jacket and shoes are still on, his tie askew. His legs are crossed at the ankle, his argyle socks mismatched. He looks uncomfortable, like he had put her to bed and was afraid if he moved, even just slightly, she would wake and fall apart all over again. Emily figures the truth is very likely close to that.   
   
He smiles kindly, mumbles _hi_ in her direction. She does so in return, but can’t quite meet his eyes. Emily doesn’t need to have a mirror to know what she looks like: dress wrinkled, hair matted, mascara smudges around her eyes. She smells the scotch on her breath, in her hair, the stench of it seeping out of her pores. Color rises on her cheeks, making her uncomfortably hot. She remembers the day before in fragments – the church, the gravesite, the rain.  She is playing back the details when she remembers the kiss. Remembers practically begging him to take her to bed.   
   
Emily swallows around the acid rising in the back of her throat and reaches up to pinch the bridge of her nose. She is about to apologize for being a drunken mess, the words right on the tip of her tongue ready to spill over, but Reid must recognize the instant she remembers because he shifts onto his side so he is facing her. He reaches towards her and does not ask for permission before pushing a tangled piece of hair out of her face. Her will to resist is paper thin, and she leans into this touch on instinct, already recognizing the spark that settles at the base of her spine as familiar and welcome.   
   
“I’m sorry I shut you out,” she tells him quietly instead.  
   
Again, he smiles. The warmth it offers presses into her skin. Emily closes her eyes. Makes a memory.   
   
“I know.”   
   
 

   
 

 

 

[f i f t e e n]   
   
   
She sends Reid home – not in an attempt to push him away, but because it seems like the right thing to do. It’s Saturday after all. Diana will be asking for him.   
   
It shouldn’t surprise her that he comes back a few hours later to help her make sense of her mother’s things, but it does.   
   
The US government extends their gratitude for her mother’s lifetime of service, but in the same breath serves notice. A new ambassador will be sworn in very soon, with her mother’s body not even cold in the ground. It is something Emily is having great difficulty coming to terms with: the way the world around her continues on, seemingly unchanged while she is still struggling with the adjustment. She knew this day would come, death an eventuality nobody can outrun, but she never thought it would affect her like this.   
   
The estate doesn’t technically belong to her mother, but it holds the remnants of her life nonetheless. Emily and Reid focus on the personal areas – the bedroom, the study, the living room with the most wear – and leave the rest for the movers. This has never been someplace that Emily considers home and Emily finds herself feeling thankful for it for perhaps the first time. Knows having memories within these walls would make sorting through all that remains of Elizabeth Prentiss that much more difficult.   
   
As they organize the two of them find hints of a sentimental side of her mother Emily didn’t know she possessed – baby pictures on her bedside table, an ugly jewelry holder a younger, carefree Emily made once upon a time, childhood drawings pressed into pages of worn books. On her dresser, next to her mother’s expensive Parisian perfume and silver-plated mirror and hair brush that have been passed down for generations lies a picture of Emily, the day she graduated from the academy. Near that is her father’s wedding band, the gold bent on one side from everyday wear and tear.   
   
Once upon a time, her mother dreamed a life for Emily that included politics, a seat on the senate or in congress. Her father’s dreams were less grand but no less noble: a physician, a lawyer, a mother to his grandchildren. It’s a hard thing to swallow knowing she disappointed them both. Her mother was never shy about this nor about the disappointment she felt when Emily chose to live a life as a Company Man instead. Emily surprises herself by telling Reid this, about what younger Emily was like once upon time – both unashamedly curious and reckless. She tells him about being pregnant at fifteen, the choice she made that felt right at the time, and how her mother pretended she never knew even though Emily is sure she did and was no doubt relieved. Emily tells him how she has spent most of her life pretending as if that moment never happened, but there are times, after particularly long days, that she finds herself wondering _what if._  
   
Emily tells him how utterly fucked up she feels about all of this. How she sometimes watched him with Diana in wonder and awe, envious of the way they loved each other. She tells him how easy it was for her and her mother to go without contact while she was pretending to be Lauren Reynolds and later when she was pretending to be dead. How when she came back after Doyle her mother appeared neither angry or relieved, just complacent. Emily tells him about the heaviness of the anger she has carried towards her mother, how for so long she has blamed her mother entirely for the void that existed between them, but now that she is gone, her absence is making her see things differently. She tells him that she is starting to realize that maybe it was a little bit her fault too. That Emily felt so much anger towards her mother for not accepting her for who she was all the while she was doing the same, expecting her mother to be something she wasn’t and could never be.   
   
Reid doesn’t say much, aware enough to know there isn’t really anything to say. He does the same thing she had done for him not too long before: allows Emily to talk until she had nothing left to say. Quietly helps her sort her mother’s belongings into piles for discarding and keeping. Does not pass judgment as she bares her secrets to him. Does not ask questions even if he has them. He lets her talk, and he listens without reservation.   
   
Emily tries not to be overwhelmed by how grateful she is just for his mere presence.   
   
Later, they order in Chinese because it is the first thing that has sounded good to her in days, and Reid is diligent in his quest to get her to eat something. They settle on a couch in one of the many living rooms, the only one with a television. They do something she knows would drive her mother crazy: eat greasy takeout on antique furniture, glasses of water sweating all over what is likely to be a near-priceless coffee table.   
   
Emily feels uncomfortably full after just a few bites, her stomach protesting the state of having something of substance in it rather than the alcohol it had quickly become accustomed to over the past week.  On the television, something mindless plays as they both settle back into the couch. She props her bare feet on the glass of the table, crossing them at the ankle. Reid quickly follows suit and in the process, adjusts himself so she can settle fully against him.   
   
It no longer surprises her how easily he invites her in and also how she reaches for him blindly, her fingers finding home around his. 

It is done without thought – the seeking and offering of comfort. 

It’s nothing they haven’t done before, but it feels different now. Emily tries to figure out a way to describe the difference with words that hold the same significance with which she regards the change, but all she can decide on is simply that it feels like more.   
   
When she glances at him sometime later she finds him lost in his own thoughts. She squeezes his hand, just once, in an attempt to pull him out of whatever spiral he has fallen into. His mouth presses into a smile when he looks at her.    
   
“I’m glad you’re here,” she tells him softly.   
   
   
   
 

 

 

 

[s i x t e e n]  
   
   
Out west a vigilante terrorizes the streets of Seattle and the team gets invited in after the third murder.  Emily gets left behind. The Bureau gives her another two weeks of mandatory bereavement leave after her mother’s burial, and even though Emily knows it is a show of kindness, of respect, it is also the start of her unraveling. 

She has never done well with idle hands.   
   
The psychiatric evaluation and accompanying therapy sessions are not uncommon after mandatory leave, but somewhat worthless, Emily thinks, when the subject of said evaluation and therapy is an expert at reading people and can answer almost any question before it is even asked. But she plays along. Mostly because she has to but also because she recognizes it for what it is: a waiting game. She jumps through the hoops The Bureau creates to make sure they aren’t allowing unstable people back in the field and tries to be patient.   
   
It is recommended by countless people that Emily should try and re-establish her routine, to make a play for normalcy. Emily thinks the advice is a tad bit ridiculous because her routine involves work and work is the literally the one thing she cannot do right now.   
   
Still, she tries.    
   
Emily runs in the morning when she cannot sleep. Runs at night when she cannot sleep. She goes to the grocery store and buys perishable items instead of just microwaveable meals. She doesn’t eat them. She cleans – the kitchen, the bathrooms, the floors, the windows, the floorboards, the grout between the tiles. She unpacks boxes. She then realizes she has been home for almost two years and her sublet is probably about to expire and repacks them. She does not sleep. She does not cry. She buys a storage unit and pays movers to put all of her mother’s belongings in there, out of sight and out of mind. She starts and stops reading the same book at least fifty different times. She thinks about calling Reid twenty or so times a day, just to check in, just to see how the case is going, but doesn’t. Calls JJ instead. She tries for sleep, but when she closes her eyes she sees her mother’s lifeless eyes staring back at her. She does not sleep. She thinks about the kiss. She actively does not think about the kiss. She thinks about the way Reid felt pressed up against her. Thinks about how much she had wanted him that night, how she had so much need for him welled up inside of her that she was wanton with it.   
   
She actively _does not_ think about those things and blames it all on the alcohol.   
   
She thinks about kissing him again and knows she cannot blame it on anything but herself.   
   
There are a few nights when Garcia calls and asks to meet for a dinner – quick and local because she is still working the case and can only be away for so long. Emily knows this is because she is the only one in the same vicinity. Knows that while the others are away it is her turn to gather concrete proof that Emily hasn’t become completely unstable. There is a schedule, probably, made with glitter and fancy writing because Emily hears from people in waves, almost like clockwork. There are texts from some, phone calls from others. Garcia has always been the best at making people feel like they are not alone, that they are truly loved. Which is exactly why Emily goes to dinner even though she is never hungry and pushes food around a plate as she makes half-hearted attempts at conversation.   
   
Afterward, she goes home. Watches the news. Then the late-night shows. Then the infomercials.   
   
Still, she does not sleep. 

When a new day breaks the cycle restarts.  Emily laces her shoes and sets her feet against the pavement. Runs and runs and runs until her lungs can hardly breathe in and out with the speed necessary to sustain her pace. Runs until her legs can barely carry her any longer.    
   
She goes home. She showers. She picks up the same book and reads the same page four times before tossing it to the side. She tries not to feel sad. Tries not to feel angry. Tries not to feel lonely. Tries not to feel guilty for missing her mother now so, so much when she paid such little attention to her and her presence and their complicated relationship for the past forty plus years while she was still living and breathing and _there_. Tries not to feel guilty for being so unbelievably angry with her in the same breath.    
   
Emily keeps moving and moving and moving so she is too busy to feel anything at all.   
 

 

 

 

   
[s e v e n t e e n]  
   
   
Most nights in the days and weeks following the funeral Morgan checks in. Usually later in the evening because he knows her well, even now, and knows she will still be awake.   
   
They talk about nothing important, and it is easy. Mostly.   
   
It is also incredibly surreal.   
   
He is ranked high on a list she keeps in her head of people she would do anything for, but it is different without the work serving as an undercurrent tying them together. These people, her team, are her family. She has always considered them as such even after she left. It is an odd thing to realize that she is not theirs. At least not in the same way. Morgan has a life outside of them now, outside of the work, and it places a void between them whether they want there to be or not. Emily does not fool herself into thinking it won’t be the same when JJ or Garcia decide to leave. Even Rossi now that he has Joy. It is just the nature of the work – if you manage to get out mostly intact, you don’t want to bring reminders with you of what you are trying to leave behind.  
   
She hates that at some point in the not-too-distant future all that she will likely know of these people is what she sees in times of death or need.   
   
“Jesus, Emily,” Morgan breathes over the line.  “Even over the phone, you sound like shit.”.   
   
Her mouth curls but she does not laugh. “Yeah, well.”   
   
“Yeah, _well_.” She can practically hear him rubbing his jaw over the line. “You need to sleep. You need to take care of yourself. You will be no use to them when you get back if you aren’t a hundred percent.”   
   
“I know.”     
   
He sighs heavily and then there is silence for a long beat. “I’m sorry I am not there.”   
   
“I’m okay, Derek.” Emily means it to sound more convincing than it does, and because he knows her and all of her tells, she clears her throat and tries again, “I _will_ be okay.”   
   
“I know. I know you will. Just, you know, try to keep it together in the meantime, okay?”   
   
The faint sounds of crying can be heard in the distance and Savannah’s soft voice breaks through the background noise. Morgan jumps off the phone with a quick goodbye. There is a promise to talk soon she knows he will keep. Their nightly calls will stay a routine until she goes back to work. Until a case takes her out of town, and she misses the call once or twice because she is busy. After that, he will stop calling because he will know if she is working then she is okay.   
   
And then it will be another holiday or crisis or death until they talk again.   
   
On the television, some mindless sitcom is on. The laugh track plays, but Emily has missed the joke.   
   
  

 

 

While he is in Seattle, Reid calls nearly every day. They talk about the case first. Reid makes a point to ask her opinion on something pertaining to the profile or victimology that he has most likely figured out already. Emily plays along. Mostly for the distraction, for the chance to feel useful and important, but also because she is thankful for the interruption, the ability to focus on something other than the jumbled mess inside of her head.   
   
After the conversation dries up they talk about nothing.   
   
It should be weird, probably, how easily they lapse into silence and how comfortable the silence feels. Neither one of them ever attempts to end the call, even though there is ample opportunity to do so. She can hear him fumbling about, likely going through files or case reports, and Emily closes her eyes, listens to the sounds of his movements. Sees him clearly as he moves around some nondescript police station with intent, with decisiveness because unlike the rest of them he likes the paper trails, finds them meditative. Emily closes her eyes and breathes and counts his breaths one by one as they play over the line. Feels calm. She closes her eyes and does not see her mother’s ashen face or those pale eyes staring back at her. Emily closes her eyes and listens to his breathing and does not think of her mother at all. Does not taste the bitterness of guilt she is constantly trying to swallow away or feel the weight of the anger she’s been carrying around for so long, for too long, but only now has begun to feel impossibly heavy. She does not think of Reid, of the kiss they never speak of and the kiss they are now pretending never happened. She does not think of how very much she would like to kiss him again, how when his name flashed on her phone she felt something dangerous in the pit of her belly.   
   
Emily breathes, and closes her eyes, and does not think about anything at all.   
   
   
   
 

 

“You seem to be coping well.”   
   
The woman conducting her mandatory re-entry sessions is the same one Emily saw after Doyle – Dr. Merrill. She is smiling at Emily as she talks and it somehow manages to be both kind and condescending.   
   
Emily reads the unspoken sentiment: _I know you are a liar._  
   
At her sides, Emily’s fingers roll into tight fists to keep her hands from raising to her mouth. Her nails are bitten down to the wicks and give her away. This is the place to be truthful, Emily has been told, and if she were a different person maybe it would be true. There are, after all, many truths that Emily carries, some new and many old. Like how she still hates her mother even after her death and how it is likely such a wasted effort but she does not know what else to do. Or how she thinks maybe she should have tried harder, should have been a better daughter, a better person. How she was dead in Paris all those years ago and how her mother was an afterthought, even then, even when Emily mourned nearly every aspect of the life she left behind. How Emily is struggling with what kind of person that makes her. 

Emily wants to say, aloud, to _somebody_ , that she has not really slept since the night of the funeral when her best friend was beside her and she is very afraid of what that might mean.   
   
There are a lot of true things Emily could share, a lot of true things Emily probably needs to share, but she also needs to go back to work before she devolves into a complete goddamn mess.   
   
So instead she merely shrugs and says, “I’m managing.”  
   
The other woman’s mouth presses into a thin line as she hums noncommittally in the back of her throat.   
   
“It must be a difficult thing for you, adjusting to this world that no longer has your mother in it. Especially given how complicated your relationship was.”   
   
“I would say that is an accurate statement.”   
   
“What are you going to do when you can no longer just manage? Who do you have around to support you?”   
   
“I have people.”   
   
“You mean your team?”   
   
“I mean people.” Emily chews on the inside of her cheek. Sighs. _I have someone,_ she thinks, but does not say. “I will be fine,” she mumbles. “I am fine.”   
   
The woman wears that same kind but condescending smile as she scribbles on her notepad. 

 

 

When the leads in Seattle dry up and the team is stuck out west longer than anticipated, Reid asks Emily to go visit his mother.   
   
There is a small stack of laminated notecards bound by a piece of thickly braided red yarn that Diana keeps close at all times. They are to remind her of important things. She usually has them in the front pocket of her sweater or jeans. Fingers them when she is confused but doesn’t want to admit it, always trying to push herself to remember things first and not have to be reminded. The cards are full of pictures of familiar faces, places, events. Reminders of a life well-lived despite the obstacles. She stares at one now with Emily’s face on it. Fingers the edges of it in a way that reminds Emily of Reid.   
   
Already Diana looks older, far older than she is, far older than Emily can even remember her looking in the short span of time she has known her. She understands now why they call this disease _The Long Goodbye_. Diana stares at a card with Emily’s face on it, with facts Diana had chosen to remember her by, and it makes Emily unbelievably sad for a whole different set of reasons. Makes her desperate to try and erase time, to outrun the inevitable. Most days she doesn’t know how Reid does this, how he still continues to do this.   
    
It is disturbing, she knows, to be thankful that her mother went quickly and without much preamble, but she is.    
   
“Spencer wrote me very specific instructions not to talk about your mother, Emily, but I think it is important to talk about these things. It is a part of the healing process.” Diana pauses thoughtfully. Regards Emily closely, almost scrutinizing. This too reminds her of Reid. Today is a good day for her. An excellent day actually. Emily wishes Reid was here to witness it. “Were you close?” Diana asks.   
   
Awkwardly, Emily clears her throat. Resist the urge to shift in her seat uncomfortably even though she knows there is no reason to. There is no space for pretense here.   
   
“Not particularly.”   
   
“I see.” Diana draws out the words with a click of her teeth like it all makes sense to her suddenly. “A mother’s love is a complicated thing. So is a daughter's.”   
   
It is inexplicable, the way emotion hits her then. It feels like something inside of her, the thread that has been holding her both upright and mostly together, starts to unravel. Emily hisses a sigh through her teeth. Draws a finger to her mouth. There is barely any nail left, but she chews until she bleeds.   
   
“I wasn’t a very good daughter.”   
   
“Few of us are, dear,” Diana smirks and reaches out a hand to pat her knee. They are both silent for a beat. “How are you really doing?”   
   
“I’m –” she starts and stops there.   
   
 _Fine_ , Emily thinks. _I’m fine._  
   
She opens her mouth, tries to spit out the words, these words that have become a habit, commonplace. They get lost along the way. Something rises and catches in her throat and for a moment she feels as though she cannot breathe.   
   
Eventually, she says painfully, “I’m not having a very good day.”   
    
Diana nods again. “I figured as much.”   
   
It is only when she tastes salt that she knows she is crying. 

 

 

 

 

[e i g h t e e n]  
 

The Seattle case stretches on for most of her leave. Reid goes to see his mother first, then Emily the moment he’s back in DC. He doesn’t ask for permission, just announces it like a fact when he calls to tell her he is on his way.   
   
Reid goes to his mother first, then to Emily.   
   
He does not think about heading home, unpacking, even showering after a twelve-day case and a seven-hour plane ride.   
   
It says something.   
   
It means something.   
   
Emily is too tired to figure out the significance so she simply shuts the front door behind him and watches as he drops his bag carefully to the floor before turning to face her. 

When he looks at her then, _really_ looks at her, it is with great concern and worry. He clears his throat, rocks back on his heels. At his sides, his hands twitch, like he wants to reach for her, but will not allow himself to. Emily finds herself wishing he would. Finds herself wondering how it makes logical sense to him to come to her second, only after his mother, but not to hug her. 

His lack of inaction, the pointed gaze he fixes her with is how she knows he thinks about kissing her the same way she thinks about kissing him. It is also how she knows he doesn’t want to talk about it. 

So, she doesn’t. Instead, focuses on the singular fact that she missed him while he was gone and how that realization hits her square in the chest and hurts. Her mind makes a try at self-preservation, tries to make the habitual correction of the sentiment behind the thought. She missed the routine, she tells herself. The work. Reid is a vital facet of those two entities, just as he always has been. She tells herself these things, these facts, and keeps telling herself them over and over, the words rolling around frantically in the back of her head. But the exhaustion has depleted her reserves. She no longer has the energy to keep up with the mantra until she believes in it again.    
   
“You look worse than I imagined,” he says quietly.   
   
It is likely the truth, she thinks and turns her face away from him. Walks further into the apartment and does not wait for him to follow. Earlier that morning Emily had stood in the bathroom and stared at her reflection. Took in the sight of herself. Of the older, worn out version of someone she used to be, with pale skin stretched tightly over the angles of her face that are more prominent than they have been in years.   
   
He watches her carefully as she slides into her corner on the couch. Does that thing where he squints as he thinks too much and then turns on his heels towards the kitchen. She hears the refrigerator door noisily open and then closes. A heavy sigh.   
   
“Your produce is rotten,” he tells her. “And your milk.” She listens as he throws stuff into the trashcan, opens and closes cupboards before making his way back out to the living room.   
   
“Already?”   
   
The couch shifts as he takes his seat next to her. There is a good amount of space left between them, almost a foot. Her gaze flickers to his face for some semblance of an explanation but his expression is unreadable. Emily cannot decide whether it is intentional or not but figures it likely is.   
   
“It helps if you actually eat it.”   
   
“I’m not… I haven’t been hungry.”   
   
“You need to eat. Your body needs fuel regardless of whether you feel hungry. It’s a biological – ”    
   
“– Okay,” she cuts him off with a sigh and is thankful when he does not continue.   
   
They order in and argue after the food arrives because Emily mostly just pushes it around her plate with a fork and Reid is annoying in the way he calls her out on it. She tells him she isn’t hungry and Reid tells her he doesn’t care. They go back and forth a few times, and it almost feels good to have somebody to argue with, to have somebody at all. The banter is easy and familiar but quickly turns into something else. He snaps at her for real, the frustration laced into his words. 

“Just let me do this, okay? Let me help you. Let me take care of you.”   
   
 _I don’t need help_ , she thinks on reflex but knows it would be a lie. He looks at her and this time his expression is completely open and honest, raw with emotion. The concern is there again. The affection too. But he also looks scared. Of her or for her Emily is not sure, but it is enough to make her give in, make a show out of piling food onto her fork and shoveling it into her mouth. She smiles something overly-pleasant and borderline sarcastic towards him after a few bites. He is clearly unamused but she sees the corner of his own mouth lift just slightly.    
   
“We take care of each other,” he says suddenly and very seriously. “It’s what we do. It’s how we work.”   
   
There are no words she can think of then to adequately respond, so she says nothing. Merely nods and takes another bite of her food. Allows silence to settle between them again. 

Her thoughts are scattered, flittering from one thing to the next, and at some point she finds herself thinking about the beginnings of things. How their friendship started as a simple reaction to a non-existent boundary between work and home. How it evolved into something different, something deeper. How it was eventually worn down by lies and time and lack of care. It is a testament to their mutual stubbornness and determination that they are here, now, after the rebuilding. How they didn’t always understand each other and they didn’t always know the right thing to say or do, but they both always knew it started with simply showing up.   
    
“I don’t sleep,” she says all of a sudden, the sound of her voice startling the both of them. “I can’t. I close my eyes and I see her dead in the hospital and it messes me up all over again. Out of all the things I’ve seen, this is what fucks me up. I don’t understand it.” She stops to rub angrily at her eyes where the tears well at the corners. “She’s dead and I’m completely fucked up over it, Spencer. She’s dead and I don’t get why that matters so much when I barely allowed her to matter when she was alive.”   
   
“She mattered to you or you wouldn’t have been so angry for so long.”   
   
“She wasn’t even that terrible of a mother. We’ve seen worse. I carried so much anger for so long and for what? Why?”   
   
“I don’t know,” he says quietly. He looks sad. She cannot stand him looking at her that way, with such pity, and looks away. “I do know that you’re replacing that anger with guilt and it isn’t fair to you. I know you feel guilty for the things you did and didn’t do, but she was not innocent. You are not completely at fault in this, Em. It’s hard to remember because she is dead and people don’t like to think ill of the dead, but it doesn’t make it any less true.”   
   
Her throat does this weird hiccupping thing when she tries to contain the sob welling up inside of her. She tastes salt on her lips and angrily wipes the tears away, hides her face even more. She laughs at nothing and it sounds borderline crazy as it rings hollow in her ears. Reid makes a desperate noise and reaches for her finally, his fingers on her jaw immediately, guiding her gaze to his. His touch makes something involuntary coil deep within her and she feels alive for the first time in weeks.   
   
“Don’t.” She tries to move away, but he doesn’t allow it, and she doesn’t really have the energy to keep fighting. “ _Please._ I’m a goddamn mess, Spencer.”   
   
His mouth turns slightly. “I think that’s to be expected.”   
   
Emily does not fall apart, but she does cry and does not try to hide it any longer.   
   
The way she folds into him, the way his arm wraps around her shoulders, and his fingers drag through her hair feels both familiar and safe. 

He does not tell her it is going to be okay. He does not try to placate her with meaningless words. He does not say anything at all. He is just there.   
 

 

 

 

   
[n i n e t e e n]   
   
   
In the morning Emily wakes to the sound of rain.   
   
She is sandwiched in-between Reid’s side and the back of the couch. She can feel his heartbeat against her cheek. Can count every breath by the rising and falling of his chest. He is snoring softly, and her mouth curls at the unexpected sound. Finds the way the vibrations dig into her skin and linger oddly settling. He’s half on the couch, his right foot flat on the floor. He cannot be comfortable, she thinks, but moves closer to him until they have formed a solid, languid line.   
   
He does not stir, merely continues to breathe and snore, and Emily closes her eyes and counts his breaths until she falls asleep again.   
   
   
  

 

 

 

[t w e n t y]  
   
   
During Emily’s first week back the team works two cases on opposite sides of the country. They start the following week after at home, searching for a missing kid in rural Maryland. The boy turns up alive just outside of the Delaware border and by Wednesday the team has been invited in to investigate a series of rapes in Dallas. They’re in Indiana that weekend. Illinois the following Tuesday. They spend the remainder of the month in New Mexico attempting to decipher whether an onslaught of beheadings is the work of a cartel of a highly-skilled serial who uses the border as a forensic countermeasure. They pool their resources with Jack Garrett and his guys, and Emily gladly hands the case off to him when the killer goes international and starts leaving heads on spikes outside of Juarez.   
   
The work has always been Emily’s most trusted routine, a failsafe of sorts. Being back feels so familiar, so comforting in the aftermath of her mother’s death and the mandatory leave that nearly drove her out of her mind, that she hit the ground running and just never bothered to stop. Despite the constant traveling and long hours, Emily feels a deep sense of renewal, a rejuvenation of sorts. With an occupied mind, she was able to file most everything pertaining to her mother away safely in a tiny box labeled _do not EVER open_. With that burden mostly lifted for the time being she was able to focus on the things that mattered. Her thinking became clearer. Sharper. When she closed her eyes, she only saw darkness and finally, _finally_ , she was able to sleep.   
   
But when JJ remarks over coffee one morning that she has only seen her boys five nights out of the entire month, Emily knows her team needs a break. Knows the pace she has selfishly set for them cannot persist. So she sends them home to rest. Finds herself heading back to the office, alone, on a Friday night, to start on paperwork and review outstanding law enforcement requests. Because her mind is clearer, sharper, and she can profile herself better than anyone, she realizes burying herself in the work is only a temporary fix. 

Knows the facade will hold, and hold, and continue holding until it breaks under the pressure Emily places on it.  
   
So, when Dr. Merrill suggests to Emily that it would be a good idea for them to continue their sessions, Emily reluctantly agrees. Not because she thinks it will help, but because Emily knows it couldn’t possibly make her hurt more than she already has. The two weeks following her mother’s burial are remembered in a blur, a haze of pseudo-dissociation and despair. She doesn’t ever want to feel that way again. Emily doesn’t want anyone to ever see her like that again. So now once a week Emily heads into the office early, stops on the fifth floor first before heading to the bullpen, and sits in a room with a lady whose smile remains kind but becomes slightly less condescending with time.   
   
At first, they don’t talk about anything significant.  Or at all, really. Emily mostly sits there and the other woman scribbles on a notepad, and when they do talk it is about the weather, or something vague and non-threatening, like their weekend plans. But eventually, they do. Eventually, the woman asks _how are you doing today_? and Emily spent the night before restless and dreaming about her mother and finds herself too tired to lie. 

Eventually, Emily comes to believe what she was once told about this being a place for the truth and sheds some of hers.   
   
Emily isn’t actually certain anything changes as a result of it. Maybe the anger becomes less and the guilt too, but Emily cannot discern if it has any correlation with therapy or just a result of time and distance and her startling ability to compartmentalize. It is just another routine added to the pile, really. There along with the work, the Saturday mornings spent with Diana, the Saturday evenings spent with Reid, the Sundays where she and Reid start off separate - he at the park playing chess, she at home doing paperwork - but almost always end up together.   
   
And if there is anything that is truly different now versus before it is Reid. 

Reid is careful with her, which isn’t exactly new, but the way he goes about it now is vastly different than before. He orbits around her, almost always within her peripheral, almost always just within reach. It had started simultaneously with her return from leave, and initially, Emily read it as worry. And that made sense to her because he had seen her break down, he had seen her at her worst. She was not in a good space when he came to her after Seattle. But it has persisted well past that. Emily cannot tell if he touches her more now than he ever has or if she is just more acutely aware of it, but his fingers will graze her shoulder while they are out in the field to get her attention, press against hers as he places an unrequested cup of coffee into her hands at their morning briefing. All too often now he stands too close in elevators, presses his palm into the small of her back as he moves past her around a conference room. 

It is nothing provocative, nothing that could be mistaken for anything but an intimate familiarity between two friends or a closeness this job demands among team members. But there is something in the way he looks at her sometimes, a profound mixture of wariness and unmistakable affection settling on his features that tells Emily it is more than that. 

Reid touches her now, and it is no different than before, really, except sometimes Emily gets the strange sense that he does it just so he can convince himself of something.   
   
They do not talk about the kiss. Not the one from what feels like a lifetime ago or the one from the night of the funeral. They do not talk about how Diana’s good days are becoming all but non-existent and she now believes they are not Spencer and Emily but rather a couple that simply comes to visit and bring her books. They do not talk about how they were both oddly okay with this and never tried to correct her, or the staff who believe much of the same. They do not talk about how nearly all of their free time is spent with each other, and when JJ invites one of them over for dinner now it is nearly always assumed to be a packaged deal. They definitely do not talk about how they slept together, twice, and even though it never came close to involving sex it was likely the most intimate she had allowed herself to be with someone in years.  

They do not talk about any of these things that go unsaid between them, but they exist as an undercurrent always present and threatening.

 

 

 

 

[t w e n t y – o n e]  

 

Her apartment is sublet from an old colleague who transferred out of state around the same time Emily rejoined The Bureau. This colleague was initially leasing from an acquaintance that took an indefinite assignment overseas a few years back and didn’t want to give up his rent controlled walk up in the West End. Emily gets served notice the overseas assignment is ending and he will be needing his apartment back by the start of fall. Which is fine, mostly, and why Emily never bothered to unpack. It was only meant to be temporary. 

They talk about it in therapy. Not because it is a problem but because Dr. Merrill wants her to do an exercise where she writes down any automatic thoughts that come into her mind and identify what internal faulty belief system they are ascribing to and Emily would rather not. So instead she does what she normally does when these sessions involve some exercise or homework Emily deems as silly and changes the subject. Dr. Merrill looks mostly exasperated when Emily does this and simultaneously announces their time is up. She assigns Emily her homework for the week and Emily smiles and pretends as though she will do it and Dr. Merrill remains cautiously optimistic that she will. 

Emily finds the unwavering optimism both annoying and admirable. 

“Rent control is a pipe dream, Emily. Have you thought about buying? It’s probably a hell of a lot cheaper.” 

Dr. Merrill asks this absently, already checking her calendar for the next patient, but Emily pauses as she slips into her jacket. 

“Not really, no.” 

“You had a problem with that the last time, yes?” 

“There was a crack in the foundation —” 

“—Ah, yes. I remember now.” 

“Seriously, there was a crack in the foundation.” 

“Yes, of course.” That trademark kind but condescending smile stretches across the good doctor’s mouth. “But there was some other stuff going on at the time, correct? You felt uncomfortable here after your time away – your words, not mine. You are in a very similar situation now, aren’t you?” 

Emily sets her jaw. “Yes.” 

“Do you feel the same now?” 

It’s a challenge, although to the other woman’s credit a very well hidden one. There is a long pause and when Emily does not answer Dr. Merrill simply mumbles _think about it_ and _now our time is officially up_ before ushering her out the door. 

 

 

Emily buys a paper with the classifieds out of spite the next morning, just to prove something. 

Asking Rossi for his realtor’s information a few days later is something altogether different. 

She looks at fixer-uppers in Dupont Circle, again, before quickly realizing she’s far too busy and far too exhausted to take on a renovation. The search eventually shifts to condos or brownstones that are mostly finished. Looks in JJ’s neighborhood first, but hates the commute. Then Georgetown, but again – the commute. 

Eventually, Emily settles on the area of Van Ness because she is there most of the time anyway, always near Reid in some capacity, and kind of likes that the barista at the café she frequents already has her order memorized and can tell just by the look of her when she needs an extra shot of expresso or donut or both. Emily takes Reid to look at places with her on the weekends. Isn’t surprised to find that he is willing to argue for a place if it has character, and against a place for lack thereof. Naturally, he likes houses to have a history; Emily could care less about all of that and argues for the important things like updated plumbing. Her realtor is mostly unamused at their antics as they playfully argue in the middle of an oversized townhome that is a short sale adorned with vaulted ceilings. Reid tells her it once belonged to somebody that did something important, but the necessities to be brought into the twenty-first century. 

Emily makes a good argument against the place for show, just for the sake of arguing, but can already picture her things filling the empty space around her. 

The last and only time she had done this, made a play at laying a foundation, everything felt rushed and too soon. She had told Morgan at the time that nowhere felt like home in an effort to cover the self-doubt that lurked behind her indecision. He had offered her some trite line about a house being nothing but four walls, but a home was all about people. Emily had laughed. Playfully tossed the word sentimental around like it was an insult, but didn’t quite understand. Wasn’t yet ready to understand. 

She thinks maybe she is now. 

Maybe it took years and an ocean between the person she was then and the person is now, so many lessons learned the hard to way to realize some very true things about herself, about life. Maybe it took things falling apart and a rebuilding to realize there are cracks in every foundation and yes, they will always be there, but it is the adjustments you make to account for them that matter the most. 

 

 

Mark comes to New York for business and calls her because that is the type of guy he is, the type of guy he always has been and Emily has never quite felt as though she deserved. He will be in DC later that week, he tells her. Asks if she is available to meet. Emily says yes because she feels like she owes it to him. 

Things did not end badly between them, but they did end, and it was mostly her decision. 

The plan is for dinner initially, then lunch due to time constraints, and finally a hurried coffee in the middle of a Friday afternoon. 

It is every bit as awkward as it shouldn’t be. Feels like two friends catching up after years apart rather than ex-lovers who could have had it all if she had tried just a little bit harder. They sit across from each other in a crowded café and talk about their mutual friends back in London, the ones she tried to keep up with after returning to the states, but became just another casualty to the job, accidentally thrown by the wayside. Mark gives his regards for her mother’s death even though Emily only allowed them to meet once. Asks if she got the flowers he sent. She nods, presses her mouth into a smile around the rim of the coffee cup even though she honestly cannot remember. The month that bridges the gap between the phone call she received in Nevada and her return to work is mostly a blur, a collection of facts she reminds herself of rather than memories. 

They partake in small talk and Emily can tell relatively quickly that he is seeing someone new. Can read it in the way he avoids nearly all conversation about himself, the way he allows the _we_ to slip just the once. She takes a moment to appreciate him, all of him, and despite the awkwardness of their meeting, there is a happiness about him lingering just beneath the surface like he is trying to hide it. And she finds herself happy for him. Hopes that she is a nice girl, one his mother will love instead of just tolerate and can give him the home and family he deserves. 

All of the things he wanted from her but she could not give him. 

Throughout the entire hour they are together, Emily’s phone rings and rings, the buzzing audible even from deep inside her jacket pocket. Mark is used to it and mostly ignores and talks over it. Even in London this facet of Emily never changed – she was the job, for better or worse. In the beginning, it would anger him, her inability to separate the two, her inability to create a space just for him in her life, but eventually he simply realized it was the way it would always be, and accepted it. Accepted her. 

Mark does much of the same now, smiling softly and motioning with a tilt of his head that it is okay if she checks her messages. She does, scanning texts and emails quickly, listening to the first few seconds of her latest voicemail from Garcia. When she turns back to him he is waiting patiently, and she realizes, not for the first time, that she never did treat him as well as she should have.

“I’m sorry,” she says to him then. It could be read a thousand different ways, but Mark understands immediately. Shakes his head. Smiles beautifully even if the edges are a bit worn and sad. 

“Don’t be,” he tells her softly. “You are who you are, love. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I loved who you are very deeply. I am grateful for that.” 

Reaching forward for a discarded napkin, her fingers absently tear it apart. She chuckles. “How are you still so wonderful?” 

“I’m not that wonderful. I went on a two-week bender after you left. Cursed your name to every barman in London. Very colorfully I might add. If you visit anytime soon you may want to stay away from our old neighborhood.” 

“I deserve that.” 

“Perhaps,” he agrees, but not unkindly. “But you also deserve to be happy. Even if it isn’t with me. Even if it was never going to be in London.” He pauses and his gaze drags over her slowly, like he is taking her in, trying to make a memory. She figures this will be last time they ever see each other and it makes her sadder than she ever thought possible. “Are you happy, Emily?” 

“Some days, I think,” she says after a thoughtful moment. It is the truth. The whole truth. He deserves at least that, even if it is much too late. 

Their waitress breezes by and Mark presses some money into her hand to cover their coffees and a generous tip. When they part on the sidewalk they stand there for entirely too long, just looking at each other as people hustle about on the busy street around them. 

Finally, he simply leans in, brushes his mouth to the corner of hers. 

“Be well,” he murmurs.  

And then he is gone.

 

 

 

 

[t w e n t y – t w o]

 

Reid knew about the coffee date way back when it was originally meant to be dinner because there is nothing, Emily has found, that she really keeps from him anymore. He thought it was a good idea, even pressed her to continue to make time for a dinner even when she and Mark’s schedules would not permit it. Which is why it is surprising to Emily how weird he gets after it actually happens. How when she gets back to the office and Garcia asks her about it in the most obnoxious, scandalous way like only Garcia is allowed, Reid kind of just slips away quietly mid conversation. Or later when she asks him if he wants her to stop by tonight with dinner and he acts as though he forgot that was a thing they do.

The weirdness continues all the way until she shows up at his apartment, take out under her arm, and he hesitates before letting her in. Emily isn’t sure if he actually agrees to let her come in or if she just walks past him into the kitchen, but regardless he shuts the door and follows. 

When they are finally in the same vicinity of each other, Emily lays a hand against his arm. Asks quietly, “What is going on with you?” 

His jaw tightens. There is a hint of jealousy there, she thinks, but then in the same thought remembers this is Reid and that is now how he operates. Still, there is a surge of something that swells in her chest at the thought. Something primal and possessive. She doesn’t try to bury it; finds that she actually likes the way it fills her up. 

“Nothing. _Nothing_. I just,” he starts, stops, and levels his gaze with hers. “I realize it was selfish of me to never ask about him – about Mark. You talked about him coming to join you after you got the promotion and then he didn’t. I never asked why.” 

Her mouth quirks. “To be fair you were a little busy.” 

There is a pointed look thrown in her direction as Reid moves completely out of her grasp and turns so he is facing her. He is now on the opposite side of his small kitchen, a few feet of linoleum between them. He leans his weight against the counter at his back, pushes his hands into his pockets. 

“Emily,” he says, just her name, and she knows he is preparing himself for something. Sees it in the way he sets his shoulders. Emily finds herself cataloging possible exit strategies out of habit as they stand there and watch each other, but she knows that is not fair to him. Knows it is not fair to either of them.

With a shrug, she murmurs, “It didn’t work,” and hope he accepts it for the truth. Which it mostly is. 

He doesn’t, of course, instead simply looking at her in disbelief. “You were with him for almost two years. You lived with him.”

“Yes, and it didn’t work,” she repeats pointedly. “It barely worked in London. It wasn’t going to work here. We both knew that. Today was about him paying his respects and saying goodbye, Spencer. Nothing more.” 

He seems to mull that over for a long moment, allowing the words to sink in. Emily is hopeful he will accept that as a thorough enough explanation and is reaching for the bag of takeout next to her when he shakes his head. 

“Why not?” he asks. 

“Why not what?” 

“Why didn’t it work between the two of you?” 

Her shrug is too nonchalant as she mumbles _I don’t know_ and of course, he sees through it. Actually rolls his eyes in frustration. He isn’t convinced and Emily isn’t quite sure what else there is to tell him. Isn’t quite sure how to explain to him that she loved Mark in her own way, but it wasn’t enough to make it work. That he was a kind and generous and _good_ man and how he took her by surprise and she got caught up in the whirlwind of it and allowed him into her life more than any other man who had come before him. Made a home with him. Planned a future with him - even if it was only done half-heartedly and somewhat out of placation. 

Emily isn’t sure how to tell Reid that during their time together she showed Mark a very true and very real version of herself, but even that version had bits and pieces redacted. Whether it was out of habit or sheer fear that he would reject her if he knew the very truth of who she was, all of who she was, she was not sure. Ultimately, she knew it didn’t matter. Emily had loved Mark, yes, but she never trusted him the way he deserved. 

“I don’t know,” she tries again, and when he is about to cut her off angrily she holds up a hand and speaks over him, shutting him up entirely. “I think that we both knew it was never going to be us, you know?” Emily stops again, clears her throat awkwardly. “I think he knew I would always end up back here, even when I was trying to convince myself otherwise.” 

Reid’s eyebrows raise. “Even if Hotch hadn’t –”

“ –Yes.” The certainty in her voice surprises the both of them. She adds almost as an afterthought, “Pretty sure of it anyway.” 

“Okay.” 

He turns around, a signal to her the conversation is over and moves to grab plates from a cupboard. She is relieved; follows his lead. Grabs some glasses, forks, knives. Their takeout is probably cold now. She moves towards the microwave then but then remembers that Reid likes his Chinese better when it’s cold and stops. When she turns around she finds him leaning against the counter again, hands by his side gripping the edges. He looks confused, like he is trying to figure something out. 

“Spence?”

“It was relief, I think,” he blurts out after a long moment. 

Her eyes narrow. “What?” 

“It was relief. I was relieved. When he didn’t move to join you, I was relieved. I think that is why I never asked.” 

“Oh.” 

“Yeah.” 

They stand there and simply blink at each other for the longest time, mirror images in his too-small kitchen. Emily uses the counter behind her for support as she considers his words and Reid curls his fingers around the edges in an attempt to ground himself, to keep himself present and from looking away from her. And he doesn’t, his gaze stays levels with hers, both unyielding and unforgiving. 

It unhinges her. _He_ unhinges her. 

The act of not looking away under his scrutiny is born out of sheer will and determination. 

This is the closest they have ever been to talking about this – what this thing is between them. This thing they broke and then rebuilt into something entirely different without even meaning to. This thing they do not name, do not truly acknowledge with words is even present, but are constantly finding themselves having to dance around, toeing its edges with both fear and intense curiosity.  

They don’t talk about it, almost as a rule, but Emily suddenly finds herself itching for a change. 

“I didn’t leave because of you.” 

There is no real reason as to why she says it, only that it feels important in that moment to explain certain things to him. Emily cannot help but feel as though this moment, this conversation is a tipping point, the start down a path in which there may be no return. Reid likes facts, needs them to operate, and she knows he will not be able to venture down any road with her without all of the necessary information. 

“Maybe you were a part of it. Possibly even a catalyst. But it isn’t that simple. I felt too comfortable here. I don’t like to be comfortable, Spencer. It makes me uneasy and I think a part of me will always feel like I don't deserve it.” She stops and sighs, the sound echoing off the walls. “I went to London because I needed to prove some things to myself. I needed to figure some things out.” 

“And did you?” 

“Somewhat,” she says and looks down at her shoes. “I’m a work in progress, I guess.”  

He sighs and so does she. The moment that stretches on before them afterward wears her thin. It is so easy how her mind allows her to think about kissing him then. How she can imagine crossing the distance between them, placing her palms flat against his chest, and pressing up on her toes until her mouth slides against his. How she can already feel the weight of his mouth against hers and taste the trace of mint from his gum that afternoon and the hint of stale coffee from early that morning. Her mind also wanders back, to Salt Lake, his annoying use of the word _loved_ and how maybe it was true then. Maybe he didn’t love her like that at that time, but everything about how they are now, all the ways in which they are intertwined speaks to a different truth. 

“You should know that I don’t regret kissing you. I was drunk, yes, and you were right to stop it, but I wanted it very much. I still want it very much.” 

It is a calculated risk, putting it all on the line. Reid says nothing at all but does smile. The twist of his mouth is small but unmistakable, like he simply cannot help himself. The immediate surprise that stretches across his features slowly gives way to an apprehension that puts her on edge. Emily can see how his whole body twitches, the way he fidgets in an effort to hide it and knows he is stopping himself from crossing the distance to her. She can see just how much he wants for the same things she does. 

She finds herself wishing, not for the first time, that they were different people, with less history, with less on the line, because maybe it would be easier for them that way. Easier to walk away. Easier to give in. 

“I’ve mourned the loss of you twice, Emily. I can’t do it again. I won’t do it again,” he tells her and his voice cracks embarrassingly around the words. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” she says and smiles because she knows, finally, it is the truth. 

 

 

 

 

[t w e n t y – t h r e e]

 

There is a running tally she keeps in the back of her head of all the reasons why this is a very bad idea. It is mostly born out of a mixture of old habits and a try at self-preservation. 

Some nights, when sleep fails her, she runs through the bulleted list backward and forwards. Knows he is likely across town doing the same. 

The risk is great. They were friends first, before everything, and there is a very real possibility their friendship may not survive another fracture. The job complicates matters too, which is vital to who they both are at their cores. She will never stop being an agent in some capacity and neither will he. She is his boss, a female in charge in what is largely considered to be a man’s world. The weight of that responsibility is not lost on her, but she also knows there is no upward mobility left for her at The Bureau. She lost any chance of that after the risks she took while Reid was in prison. After she recklessly did whatever was necessary to free him all the while convincing herself that she would do it for any of them, that he was no different than the others. At work, they are professional, always, but Emily can already see how her affection for Reid, their relationship, has already begun to muddy her peripheral. She worries about him more than she used to, but coupled with that is the knowledge that he is living proof of all one can and will endure. Emily used to underestimate his strength. History has made it so she cannot anymore. 

History has also proven him to be the most important person in her life. The connection they share runs deeper than friendship, deeper than anything that could be considered romantic. The intimate knowledge they have of one another far outweighs anything she has shared with anyone before him and will likely overshadow anything she could share with anyone after him. Reid has become the most important person in her life. She has shown him parts of herself she never imagined laying bare for anyone, the parts of herself she has kept carefully hidden for decades. 

At the oddest times, Emily remembers her mother. How her death left Emily bereft, nearly broken. Reid is her family, more so than she believes her mother ever was, and it is difficult to picture a life without him in it.

The depth of these thoughts, the vulnerabilities they expose, scare her less than they used to.

They dance around this thing between them with skill and precision, and it becomes a bit of a game, the testing of the waters. Reid becomes less careful with her and Emily more brazen, more impatient. 

It is quiet, their continued evolution. It is relatively unnoticeable to anyone but them, but every moment that passes seems to be laden with inevitability

JJ notices, of course, because if anyone was going to it would be her. 

There is dinner and afterward Emily and JJ settle on the back porch with a bottle of wine and watch as Reid, Will, and the boys play something that Emily was told is meant to resemble Quidditch, but in reality is just a bunch of running around in circles and yelling. The boys do their best to tackle Reid and Will and both men play along, falling backward onto the ground feigning defeat. There is some rolling around, a lot of laughter, and Emily chuckles as she sips her wine. Allows the sound to press into her skin. 

When she looks to the side she catches JJ glancing at her curiously. There is a small smile playing on her mouth, but her eyes are narrowed. 

“What is going on with you and Spence?” she asks, and it is every bit accusatory as she means it to be. 

It is late June and the humidity is already lasting well into the night. Sweat pools at the base of Emily’s spine. She has made a career out of being able to spin the truth, and the lies are already forming in the back of her head. She opens her mouth when she settles on the most believable one, but nothing comes out. 

“Nothing,” is all Emily is able to say. 

“Nothing?” 

She taps her fingers against the side of her wineglass as a distraction. Looks away, out towards where the boys are calling for them to come join. JJ dodges their beckoning, yelling something about adult time and wine, and Will is the dutiful husband and distracts them. When JJ turns back to Emily she is mostly exasperated but there is also a bit of disappointment laced in the way her mouth presses into a frown. At Emily, the lie, or the entire situation - Emily isn’t quite sure. JJ hardly ever asks questions she doesn’t already know the answer to, so this entire exercise is completely meaningless. 

“Nothing,” Emily repeats again, more seriously this time, but JJ just laughs softly. 

“Liar.” 

Emily looks up then, out towards the backyard. Immediately catches Reid’s eye. He smiles at her, mouth curving gently, but then the boys tackle him again and he is lost in a sea of arms and shrieking laughter. 

“It’s complicated,” she finds herself telling JJ. “It’s just really fucking complicated.”

JJ is laughing again when she asks, “Isn’t it always?”

 

 

 

 

[t w e n t y – f o u r]

 

“I think JJ knows.” 

This is later that night, after they’ve returned to Reid’s apartment. Mornings are better for Diana and they will head her way early the next morning. It makes more sense for Emily to sleep on the couch instead of venturing across town only to trek all the way back in just a few short hours to pick him up. Her overnight sits neatly near his desk, and she kicks her shoes off somewhere next to it. Feels at home among his things.

At her comment, he looks towards her questioningly for a moment before smiling. 

“Of course she does.” 

There are grass stains all of his clothes and Emily finds herself thinking back to just an hour or two before, watching him with Henry and Michael, the sheer happiness she felt at the sight. Something inside of her chest aches and constricts and Emily finds herself acknowledging, for perhaps the very first time, that she is in love with him. It is a quiet revelation. Seemingly insignificant, she muses, because everything about who they are to each other speaks to the depth of their love for one another. It is present in everything they say and leave unsaid, all the things they do. 

She has loved Reid for years. Loved him for who he was when she first met him. Loved him for the person he has grown to be now. But she has never allowed herself to completely fall, to be _in love_ with him until this moment. 

Easily, she remembers their kiss all those years ago. Finally, recognizes what she felt then – the overwhelming sense that she may have fallen for him if she allowed herself the chance. Knows now that simple fact, that tiny piece of knowledge impacted nearly every action afterward. She simply wasn’t ready then. She is now. She stands in the middle of his tiny apartment as he occupies every bit of the space around her and envisions her future. Can only manage to see one unyielding constant before her. 

When Reid starts readying for bed, she blindly follows his lead. Allows their routines to guide her as she goes through the motions on autopilot. Weighs her options. Feels both excited and overwhelmed, and also a tad bit foolish for taking so long to allow herself to figure out what a part of herself has likely known all along. 

Emily is just finishing up washing her face when he slides into position next to her at the sink. His bathroom is too small, but they’ve done this enough times to be able to move around each other effortlessly. Which is how she knows the bump of his shoulder against hers is intended. It is just another part of this dance they do – seeking physical contact from the other whenever they can. 

Reid brushes his teeth, a tiny bit of toothpaste spilling out of the corner of his mouth, and Emily finds herself laughing because it hits her then how absurd they’ve been about this. The line between them is there, as it always has been. They’ve made an art out of toeing it, minding it’s edges out of muscle memory alone as it became less bold, barely noticeable. Emily finds she is finally ready to cross it completely. Realizes he likely needs her to be the one to say it first. That his self-doubt is rooted in a lifetime of naysayers telling him he isn’t good enough and born out of an innate fear of losing everyone he has ever loved, everyone he has ever allowed to get close. 

He notices her staring, mumbles “What?” around a mouthful of toothpaste. 

With a shake of her head, she feels overcome with bravery and steps closer to him. She is still chuckling softly to herself when she tells him spontaneously, “I’m tired of doing this. I’m exhausted from doing this.” Emily punctuates the word _this_ by motioning back and forth between them pointlessly. “I want more.” 

He stills mid-brush. Blinks at her a few times before proceeding with the motions, spitting out the toothpaste and rinsing his mouth with a swallow of water. When he is finished he moves slowly as he angles his body towards her and rests his hip against the sink. He says nothing at all, merely levels his gaze with hers, and she finds herself laughing again, but this time incredulously. 

“You have nothing to say?” 

“I have a lot of things to say.” 

“Well now would be a good time to say them.” 

He swallows thickly, rocking back on his heels. He has no pockets to shove his hands into, only worn pajama bottoms, so he crosses his arms across his chest to keep himself from fidgeting. She unnerves him as much as he does her, and there is an odd, uncontrollable sense of pride that bubbles within her at the realization. She smiles a little to herself. Watches as his eyes narrow on the twist of her mouth. He is considering his words, his next move, the future. There is a conversation to be had, probably, about how this will work, but they are both aware of the risks. They both know what is at stake. It is why it has taken them so long to get here, why after a decade and change of fits and starts and the past two years of constantly being on the verge of _something_ , they are still so utterly careful. 

“I need you to be sure, Emily.” 

“I am,” she says with absolute certainty, a conviction that seems to take them both by surprise. She reaches for him, fingers grazing the bare skin of his forearm as she takes another step closer to him. Waits until his arms loosen and then finally fall by his sides. When they do, her fingers knit with his. “I’m sure,” she tells him again. She looks at where their hands are intertwined then up at him. “Are you?” 

There are no grand declarations, no silly speeches. There is no room for those things in this moment, this quiet moment that is merely just another in a series of thousands that encompasses their expansive history together. What they have is more than that. What they have is born out of a fundamental trust that has been born anew, an innate understanding of each other. 

“Tell me you aren’t scared of this.” 

“I am,” she admits honestly. “But I am more scared of not doing anything at all.” 

His sigh matches her own when he reaches for her, his hand moving to the curve of her neck, sliding along her skin until his thumb rests along the line of her jaw. She feels her body come alive for him, feels something grow and expand and then constrict in her chest so much that it actually hurts. 

Emily leans into his touch, closes her eyes against the weight of it, at the feel of him so close. 

“Kiss me, Spencer. _Please_.” 

It is embarrassingly close to begging, but she does not care. He may have needed her to say it first, to be the one to ask for more, but she needs things from him too. They’ve been here before and each time she had been the one to bridge the distance and he the one to pull away. It is inexplicable to her, but she needs him to be the one to kiss her now. Needs him to choose her. 

He does. 

Reid leads in, closes the distance between them, and kisses her with a soft hesitation that quickly builds into certainty. He kisses her and everything about it feels familiar– the way his mouth molds against her own, the taste of him, the weight of his hands framing her face. She welcomes it. Opens her mouth wider, invites him in, wraps her arms around his neck, pulling him closer. His smile is immediate and she can feel it matching her own as his mouth slows against hers. He drags out a kiss as he pulls away, skimming his mouth over her jaw, the line of her throat. He buries his face in the place where collarbone meets neck, envelopes her completely as he breathes her in, holds on. 

The laughter that bubbles out of her then is both instantaneous and infectious. When he pulls back, they sort of just gaze at each other for a beat. There is a fullness in her chest that aches when she looks at him, as she watches a wide smile full of teeth stretches across his mouth. He is beautiful to her, and she cannot help but stare, cannot help but allow her hands to wander, over the muscles of his back and under the cotton of his t-shirt, seeking the warmth of his skin. He sighs a little when she makes contact and presses his eyes closed, leaning into her touch. 

When he dips forward, Emily thinks he is going to kiss her again, but he doesn’t. He slips his mouth to the corner of hers briefly. Drops his hands to her hips, thumbs tracing the outline of bone there. 

“I’ve wanted this for so long, Em,” he breathes somewhere near her ear, and she shivers. Barely recognizes the depth of his voice. “You have no idea.” 

Her mouth curls just slightly. She presses him closer to her with the palms of her hands. “I think I have some idea,” she murmurs just before claiming his mouth with her own. 

Their movements become fueled by months and years of foreplay and they make it to his bed mostly by accident. 

They move at a feverish pace, an unbridled urgency sparking to life, and when they tumble onto his bed a tangled mess of limbs and sighs, she already feels so keyed up and ready for him that she almost feels ridiculous about it because he hasn’t even gotten her clothes off yet. But then she remembers all those times she’s thought about this, all those fantasies she filed away and drug out only during the coldest and loneliest nights in London when she needed something to keep her warm. Remembers how later, after she returned home, after they begun to rebuild what was broken between them, those fantasies turned into something altogether different. Turned into a vision of the future without the constraints of the unknown, without alcohol clouding her senses, without uncertainty lurking against every move and thought. 

Emily has thought about this before, in many different ways, but the reality far outweighs anything she ever could have imagined. 

They do their best to take their time. Kiss each other slowly and thoroughly, fueled by the sounds of low moans and soft sights, the delicate arching of backs. Reid pushes her sweatpants and underwear down her legs with careful ease. Traces the dips and curves of her legs and thighs, memorizing the feel of her. He runs the pads of his fingers over the soft lines of her inner thighs, presses a single finger against her, just barely, groaning a little at how wet she is already. Emily cannot help herself, slants her hips against his touch, reaches down and teases herself, thumbing her clit in search of some sort of relief. He swears, the _fuck_ graceless and beautiful as it falls out of his mouth, and she loves the way his jaw goes slack, the way he says her name as he watches. He teases her a little then, one finger curling inside of her, then two, and he moves nice and slow, opening her up to him. Already she is writhing under his touch, bottom lip between her teeth to keep her from begging, and when he presses his tongue against her she immediately starts to unravel. 

But then he pulls away, grinning as he mumbles _not yet_ and goes to slide her shirt over her head, suddenly desperate to get at what is underneath. Once it is tossed to the side, his hands immediately seek out her breasts, skimming the delicate curve of them before dancing over her ribs, her sides, and down, down, down until his thumb stumbles over the faint scar on her belly where she had been hollowed out once and left to die. Something shifts and then stalls, his eyes flickering from hers to the scar, and he swallows thickly at the sight, at the memory, and so does she. There is a sudden panic that rises and catches in her throat, at the vulnerability of being naked before him, all of the imperfections and secrets her body carries laid bare for him to see. 

Emily looks away, turns her head to the side, but he is suddenly there, his mouth finding hers because he knows her, all of her. Always has. 

The force of the kiss, of the need behind it, reverberates deep in her bones. Makes her lightheaded and leaves her gasping for air. She has to pull away to catch her breath. And after she does, after she evens her breathing enough to be somewhat comfortable, there is a joke. Something about him being entirely way too clothed, and they both laugh as she helps rid him of his clothing.

And then suddenly they are both entirely naked, smiles dumb and wide as they take in the sight of each other, as they attempt to process that this is actually going to happen, that they are going to try and make this work. Reid looks at her, and she looks at him, her heart is full and in her throat. 

He mumbles something, a quiet, questioning _yeah?_ And Emily merely laughs and reaches for him, pulling him back down until his weight presses all around her as he settles between her legs, her own _yes_ void of any hesitation as she kisses him. 

It is a moment of choice, she knows. One where other people would likely acknowledge that everything is about to change, that what is about to happen cannot be undone. But for them it is a subtle and mutual realization that things changed between them years before and they simply took their time figuring it out, waiting until they were both ready. Which is fine, she knows, because it is better now than it ever would have been before. Better now because they are older and wiser and have grown into the types of people who can allow themselves to be known in such an intimate and vulnerable way. Better now that they are both absolutely certain of what they want and can act without any reservations or apprehension. 

Better now with a hint of promise lingering behind every kiss instead of a sense of budding regret or uncertainty. 

Reid isn’t inside her yet when their hips start to rock together, and they both moan and whimper at once. Emily thinks she may be able to come from the slow friction alone, but is desperate for more, for all of him. Finds herself begging for perhaps the first time in her life, her _please_ broken and immediate as she wraps a leg around his waist to pull him closer, to force him to understand as if he didn’t already. There is a flash of a grin that twists his mouth, of pure smugness, but she cannot tell for sure because suddenly he is inside her, filling her up completely, and for a moment everything goes blank as they just still and breathe, waiting as their bodies accommodate to the fit of each other. 

When he starts to move he is slow and it is both too much and not enough. Emily cannot catch her breath long enough to kiss him, so mostly their mouths clumsily meet a few times before she buries her face in his neck, feels the bounding of his pulse beneath her lips. They move together as if they’ve been doing this for years and when she asks for more he gives it to her without question, his pace quickening, his hands reaching down to her hip to adjust the angle, to take him deeper. Immediately, he starts to unravel. Emily can tell by the incoherent mess that starts to fall from his mouth, a jumbled combination of her name and several obscenities. When she laughs he hisses through his teeth, slips a hand between them, thumbs her clit, and the moan that rips out of her is almost visceral.

Emily comes unexpectedly and loud, one hand fisted in his hair and the nails of the other digging into his shoulder. He follows quickly, his fingers digging into her hips so hard she knows she’ll have reminders for days. 

After, everything is too bright and loud. 

It takes a few minutes for the dull hum in her head to fade, for the world to right itself again. Reid presses a kiss into her hair, then to the hard line of her jaw, then to the corner of her mouth. Mumbles something low that she cannot quite make out as his hold on her loosens, as his body continues to relax. 

His weight is heavy, presses her into the mattress. She finds it almost suffocating, and the panic is reflexive as it starts to rise and collect in the back of her throat, born solely out of old habits. Emily fights against it, swallows it down. Presses a kiss into his hair. Softly, she presses the palms of her hands into the delicate area between his shoulder blades, holds him closely.

It is quiet, her version of affection. What she knows how to give, and he understands, of course, twists his neck to kiss her and move off her simultaneously. She is surprised to find she misses the burden of his weight almost immediately. Reaches a hand for him and collides somewhere near his side, still connected but just barely. They shift until they are laying shoulder to shoulder, and when she turns to look at him he is right there, grinning at her. 

All she can do is grin back, and inch forward, sighing a little when his mouth meets hers again.

 

 

 

 

[a f t e r]

 

The next morning, Emily finds him in the kitchen making coffee. He must hear her first, turning around just as she lingers in the doorway. Reid’s smile is small at first, shy almost, and grows into something she would definitely classify as smug as he openly takes in the sight of her. 

“You are, uh, wearing my shirt,” he says, clearing his throat a little as he attempts to appear unaffected. Emily laughs quietly as she crosses the few feet to him, reaching for the fresh mug he has waiting for her. 

“It was there,” she shrugs. “Do you mind?” 

He pretends to consider it for a moment as she moves to stand across from where he is resting his weight near the sink. Leans her back against the counter. Feels brave and brazen, makes a show out of crossing her bare legs at the ankles. The button-up shirt of his rides up, exposing her thighs. Her smile curves around the rim of the mug as she blows on the steaming coffee just before taking a slow sip. 

“Not at all.” He copies her movements, crossing his legs at the ankles as he leans against the counter and takes a long sip of coffee. He’s playful, flirty, and she kind of loves it. “I never understood a woman’s affinity for absconding with men’s clothes before, but I guess I do now.” 

Her eyebrow quirks. “Do you now?” 

“Absolutely.” He takes another sip of coffee. Behind them the sun is just starting to rise, bathing his apartment with the light of early morning. They smile at each other stupidly for a few moments before he sobers considerably. “So what now?”

There is palpable reminder that they still have things to figure out. That this will not be easy. 

The apprehension lurks in the small downward turn of his mouth and she can’t stand it. Doesn’t want to burden their quiet morning with reality just yet. Doesn't want to share him with the world for just a while longer. So she places her cup of coffee to the side and crosses the small distance to him, sighs a little when he instantly reaches for her, his fingers skimming the line of her side before tangling with hers. She presses a kiss to his mouth, moans a little at the way his own opens pliantly and inviting under hers, the flick of his tongue and the way his body presses against his already learned. 

When she pulls away she is grinning and so is he. 

“This morning we will go see your mom. Tonight, we will have dinner. At some point, I am sure the phone will ring and there will be a case and we will proceed business as usual. But first,” she pauses to kiss him again, chastely near the corner. “You are going to take me back to bed.” 

“I can do that,” he murmurs slyly. 

She chuckles. “I figured as much.” 

There is a moment, or two, where they merely stand there and enjoy being in the same space as each other. At their sides, their hands are still knitted together. Emily does not think _I love you_ then as she stares at their tangled hands, but rather how some things are just sort of inevitable. How the whole world is made up of various choices, some easy and most not, but no matter which way they are strung together, no matter which trajectory they follow, the endpoint is always the same.    
   
Reid would have some statistics on this probably, on the possibilities of impossibilities, but she doesn’t want to ruin the moment by asking. 


End file.
